English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Background   Agrobacterium  infection, which is widely used to generate transgenic plants, is often accompanied by T-DNA-linked mutations and transpositions in flowering plants. It is not known if  Agrobacterium  infection also affects the rates of point mutations, somatic homologous recombinations (SHR) and frame-shift mutations (FSM). We examined the effects of  Agrobacterium  infection on five types of somatic mutations using a set of mutation detector lines of  Arabidopsis thaliana . To verify the effect of secreted factors, we exposed the plants to different  Agrobacterium  strains ,  including wild type (Ach5), its derivatives lacking  vir  genes, oncogenes or T-DNA, and the heat-killed form for 48 h post-infection; also, for a smaller set of strains, we examined the rates of three types of mutations at multiple time-points. The mutation detector lines carried a non-functional β-glucuronidase gene ( GUS ) and a reversion of mutated  GUS  to its functional form resulted in blue spots. Based on the number of blue spots visible in plants grown for a further two weeks, we estimated the mutation frequencies.    Results  For plants co-cultivated for 48 h with  Agrobacterium , if the strain contained  vir  genes, then the rates of transversions, SHRs and FSMs (measured 2 weeks later) were lower than those of uninfected controls. In contrast, co-cultivation for 48 h with any of the  Agrobacterium  strains raised the transposition rates above control levels. The multiple time-point study showed that in seedlings co-cultivated with wild type Ach5, the reduced rates of transversions and SHRs after 48 h co-cultivation represent an apparent suppression of an earlier short-lived increase in mutation rates (peaking for plants co-cultivated for 3 h). An increase after 3 h co-cultivation was also seen for rates of transversions (but not SHR) in seedlings exposed to the strain lacking  vir  genes, oncogenes and T-DNA. However, the mutation rates in plants co-cultivated for longer times with this strain subsequently dropped below levels seen in uninfected controls, consistent with the results of the single time-point study.    Conclusions  The rates of various classes of mutations that result from  Agrobacterium  infection depend upon the duration of infection and the type of pathogen derived factors (such as Vir proteins, oncoproteins or T-DNA) possessed by the strain. Strains with  vir  genes, including the type used for plant transformation, suppressed selected classes of somatic mutations. Our study also provides evidence of a pathogen that can at least partly counter the induction of mutations in an infected plant.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12870-015-0595-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Suppression of different classes of somatic mutations in Arabidopsis by vir gene-expressing Agrobacterium strains