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Developmental and Structural Section

Jeong, Sang Ho [1], Yanofsky, Marty [1].

Lotus japonicus as a model system to study legume fruit development.

Despite its importance as a source for food and feed, little is known about the genes controlling fruit development in legumes. Lotus japonicus is a diploid, self-fertile legume which was first proposed in 1992 as a model legume for molecular genetic analysis of Rhizobium-legume symbiosis. Compared to crop legume species, Lotus has a shorter generation time (3 months), smaller plant size, larger seed set, and can be grown at high density, which are essential features for genetic analysis. Lotus is readily transformable by Agrobacterium, and has a relatively small genome size (about 450 Mb) with 6 chromosomes, which are being sequenced by the KAZUSA institute in Japan. EMS, transposon, and T-DNA insertional mutagenesis have been started by many groups, and several genes regulating nitrogen-fixing nodule formation have been cloned, demonstrating the usefulness of Lotus as a model system. We plan to take advantage of these resources to expand our work into legume pod development. Two different approaches are currently employed. Our lab has previously characterized key regulators that play major roles during Arabidopsis fruit development. We are isolating putative orthologs of the Arabidopsis genes from Lotus. Both legumes and Arabidopsis siliques belong to the dry-dehiscent fruit class. While seedpods of Lotus and Arabidopsis share basic features, there are key differences as well. It will be interesting to see if the orthologs play similar roles in Lotus. We have also initiated a large-scale EMS mutagenesis screen in Lotus to identify novel genes involved in legume fruit development. Considering the existence of numerous mutants and varieties in peas and beans identified from classical genetic studies, to which similar phenotypes have not been observed in Arabidopsis, this mutagenesis is likely to produce novel fruit mutants.


1 - Universtiy of California -- San Diego, Division of Biology, Section of Cell and Developme, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California, 92093-0116, USA

Keywords:
Lotus japonicus legume fruit development.

Presentation Type: Poster
Session: 32-16
Location: Special Event Center (Cliff Lodge)
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004
Time: 12:30 PM
Abstract ID:876


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