Molecular Genotyping of Transposable Element Insertions in a Population of Uniform Mu Events

Uniform Mu is a maize strain that was developed as a model for genetic studies. Mutator transposable elements (TE) have been activated within an inbred W22 background and the movement of these transposons results in novel mutations. Researchers can identify Uniform Mu events that contain transposon insertions within a gene of interest. TE insertion events within the organism's genome often result in loss‐of‐function mutant alleles. This study aimed to genotype the presence of a TE insertion in several genes predicted to be involved in the regulation of gene expression or chromatin structure using Uniform Mu crops. Molecular genotyping was performed by using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and gel electrophoresis. We determined that 43.89% of the population contained a homozygous wild‐type genotype. On the other hand, 7.24% of the individual scored had a homozygous mutant genotype, while 11.08% of the rows assessed presented heterozygous alleles. In future experiments, we expect to analyze these genes further and identify their possible role in causing abnormalities in the chromosomes. As an integral part of people's diet around the world, these results will lead to a better understanding of the agriculture of maize crops. Support or Funding Information I would like to thank the support of Springer Lab at the University of Minnesota for all the help and guidance this summer. Also, I would like to acknowledge the RISE program in the University of Puerto Rico at Ponce for their funding. NIH‐NIGMS #2R25GM096955