Premium
Insertional mutagenesis of Brachypodium distachyon using the Tnt1 retrotransposable element
Author(s) -
Nandety Raja Sekhar,
SerraniYarce Juan C.,
Gill Upinder S.,
Oh Sunhee,
Lee HeeKyung,
Zhang Xinji,
Dai Xinbin,
Zhang Wenchao,
Krom Nick,
Wen Jiangqi,
Zhao Patrick X.,
Mysore Kirankumar S.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the plant journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.058
H-Index - 269
eISSN - 1365-313X
pISSN - 0960-7412
DOI - 10.1111/tpj.14813
Subject(s) - brachypodium distachyon , insertional mutagenesis , biology , functional genomics , genetics , retrotransposon , brachypodium , population , transposable element , genomics , genome , computational biology , gene , demography , sociology
SUMMARY Brachypodium distachyon is an annual C3 grass used as a monocot model system in functional genomics research. Insertional mutagenesis is a powerful tool for both forward and reverse genetics studies. In this study, we explored the possibility of using the tobacco retrotransposon Tnt1 to create a transposon‐based insertion mutant population in B. distachyon . We developed transgenic B. distachyon plants expressing Tnt1 (R0) and in the subsequent regenerants (R1) we observed that Tnt1 actively transposed during somatic embryogenesis, generating an average of 6.37 insertions per line in a population of 19 independent R1 regenerant plants analyzed. In seed‐derived progeny of R1 plants, Tnt1 segregated in a Mendelian ratio of 3:1 and no new Tnt1 transposition was observed. A total of 126 flanking sequence tags (FSTs) were recovered from the analyzed R0 and R1 lines. Analysis of the FSTs showed a uniform pattern of insertion in all the chromosomes (1–5) without any preference for a particular chromosome region. Considering the average length of a gene transcript to be 3.37 kb, we estimated that 29 613 lines are required to achieve a 90% possibility of tagging a given gene in the B. distachyon genome using the Tnt1 ‐based mutagenesis approach. Our results show the possibility of using Tnt1 to achieve near‐saturation mutagenesis in B. distachyon , which will aid in functional genomics studies of other C3 grasses.