De novo genetic variation revealed in somatic sectors of single Arabidopsis plants.

ABSTRACT: Concern over the tremendous loss of genetic diversity among many of our most important crops has prompted major efforts to preserve seed stocks derived from cultivated species and their wild relatives.  Arabidopsis thaliana propagates mainly by self-fertilizing, and therefore, like many crop plants, theoretically has a limited potential for producing genetically diverse offspring. Despite this, inbreeding has persisted in Arabidopsis for over a million years suggesting that some underlying adaptive mechanism buffers the deleterious consequences of this reproductive strategy. Using presence-absence molecular markers we demonstrate that single Arabidopsis plants can have multiple genotypes. Sequence analyses reveal single nucleotide changes, loss of sequences and, surprisingly, acquisition o

SUBMITTER: Hopkins MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3894806 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature