Premium
Exploring the role of DNA helicase genes targeting mitochondria or chloroplast in Arabidopsis thaliana
Author(s) -
Hazard Logan Fife,
Cupp John,
Nielsen Brent
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.20.5.a1359-b
Subject(s) - arabidopsis thaliana , chloroplast , helicase , gene , biology , dna , chloroplast dna , mitochondrial dna , arabidopsis , rna helicase a , mitochondrion , genetics , microbiology and biotechnology , rna , mutant
Although the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana has been sequenced in full, there is still much to be done to understand the expression of specific genes. For the past several months research has been done on DNA helicase genes that target the mitochondria or chloroplast, with the specific goal of understanding the role of helicases in DNA replication and recombination. Plants with T‐DNA insertions that knock out specific helicase genes are used for this research. Both wild type and T‐DNA containing plants are grown on DNA damaging and non‐damaging media. The mutant plants are then compared with wild type plants, with a particular emphasis on global phenotypic differences. Electron Microscopy is also used to observe morphological differences in the mitochondrion or chloroplasts, and quantitative real‐time PCR is used to measure the amount of chloroplast DNA in each plant line. It has been found that on a DNA damaging media, plants with the T‐DNA insertion in the chloroplast DNA helicase gene show a significant lag in development when compared to the wild type. Also observed is a dramatic increase in growth of these helicase mutant plants during the fourth week of development, before which time they showed very little progress. These results suggest the helicase protein product may play an important role in the development of the plant. They also indicate the presence of an adaptation mechanism. Further research will be done to verify these conclusions. This research is funded in part by an NIH grant.