Manipulation of flower structure in transgenic tobacco
Abstract
Genetic studies suggest that three homeotic functions, designated A, B, and C, act alone and together to specify the fate of floral organ primordia in distantly related dicotyledonous plant species. To test the genetic model, we have generated transgenic tobacco plants that ectopically express the AGAMOUS gene from Brassica napus, which is necessary for the C function. Flowers on the resulting plants showed homeotic transformations of sepals into carpels and petals into stamens. These phenotypes are consistent with predictions from the genetic model, show that expression of AGAMOUS is sufficient to provide ectopic C function, and demonstrate that the structure of flowers can be manipulated in a predictable manner by altering the expression of a single regulatory gene. Furthermore, the generation of the predicted transformations by ectopic expression of the Brassica gene in transgenic tobacco indicates that gene functions are interchangable between phylogenetically distant species.
Additional Information
© 1992 Cell Press. Received June 2, 1992; revised August 4, 1992. We thank Detlef Weigel, David Smyth, John Alvarez, Beth Savidge, and Steve Rounsley for critical reading of the manuscript. We also thank Beth Savidge and Steve Rounsley for assistance with the RNA analyses, and Harry Klee for providing the B. napus cDNA library. We also thank Desmond Bradley, Rosemary Carpenter, and Enrico Coen for allowing us to cite unpublished data. This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DCB-9018749), funds from the Powell Foundation, and a David and Lucille Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering to M. F. Y. and by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant (GM45897) to E.M.M. J.L.B. was supported in part by NIH training grant 5T32GM07818. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked 'advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 72840
- DOI
- 10.1016/0092-8674(92)90272-E
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20161214-164651739
- DCB-9018749
- NSF
- Charles Lee Powell Foundation
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- GM45897
- NIH
- 5T32GM07818
- NIH Predoctoral Fellowship
- Created
-
2016-12-15Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-11Created from EPrint's last_modified field