Mapping of the L75 Mutation in Arabidopsis (2008)

Undergraduates: Stephanie Hasty, Michelle Leslie, Christian Burr

Faculty Advisor: Sarah Liljegren
Department: Biology

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Abscission is a regulated cell separation process that allows a plant to drop organs such as flowers, seed, leaves and fruit. In the Liljegren lab, we study floral organ abscission in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. L75 is a mutation in an unidentified gene that blocks floral organ abscission in Arabidopsis. The goal of my project is to use recombination mapping to identify the gene affected by the L75 mutation. There are small sequence differences, known as simple sequence length polymorphisms (SSLP), between Arabidopsis ecotypes that yield polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products with different sizes. We crossed the L75 mutant, which is in the Landsberg ecotype, with wildtype plants of the Columbia ecotype to generate an experimental population of plants to perform recombination mapping. Using this approach, I have tested 252 plants and have found that the L75 mutation is located on the bottom of chromosome III. I am working on narrowing the interval and identifying the affected gene.