Digital Commons Network^™

The Rice Miniature Inverted Repeat Transposable Element Mping Is An Effective Insertional Mutagen In Soybean, C. Nathan Hancock, Feng Zhang, Kristen Floyd, Aaron O. Richardson, Peter Lafayette, Donna Tucker, Susan R. Wessler, Wayne A. Parrott

Faculty Publications

Insertional mutagenesis of legume genomes such as soybean (Glycine max) should aid in identifying genes responsible for key traits such as nitrogen fixation and seed quality. The relatively low throughput of soybean transformation necessitates the use of a transposon-tagging strategy where a single transformation event will produce many mutations over a number of generations. However, existing transposon-tagging tools being used in legumes are of limited utility because of restricted transposition (Ac/Ds: soybean) or the requirement for tissue culture activation (Tnt1: Medicago truncatula). A recently discovered transposable element from rice (Oryza …

Aintegumenta And Aintegumenta-Like6 Regulate Auxin-Mediated Flower Development In Arabidopsis, Beth A. Krizek

Faculty Publications

Background: Two related genes encoding AP2/ERF-type transcription factors, AINTEGUMENTA (ANT) and AINTEGUMENTA-LIKE6 (AIL6), are important regulators of floral growth and patterning in Arabidopsis. Evidence suggests that these genes promote several aspects of flower development in response to auxin. To investigate the interplay of ANT, AIL6 and auxin during floral development, I have examined the phenotypic consequences of disrupting polar auxin transport in ant, ail6 and ant ail6 mutants by either genetic or chemical means.

Results: Plants containing mutations in ANT or AIL6 alone or in both genes together exhibit increased sensitivity to disruptions in polar auxin transport. …

Homoplastic Microinversions And The Avian Tree Of Life, E. L. Braun, R T. Kimball, K. L. Han, N. R. Luhasz-Velez, A. J. Bonilla, Jena L. Chojnowski, J. V. Smith, R. C. Bowie, M. J. Braun, S. J. Hackett, J. Harshman, C. J. Huddleston, B. D. Marks, W. S. Moore, S. Reddy, F. H. Sheldon, C. C. Witt, T. Yuri

Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND:

Microinversions are cytologically undetectable inversions of DNA sequences that accumulate slowly in genomes. Like many other rare genomic changes (RGCs), microinversions are thought to be virtually homoplasy-free evolutionary characters, suggesting that they may be very useful for difficult phylogenetic problems such as the avian tree of life. However, few detailed surveys of these genomic rearrangements have been conducted, making it difficult to assess this hypothesis or understand the impact of microinversions upon genome evolution.

RESULTS:

We surveyed non-coding sequence data from a recent avian phylogenetic study and found substantially more microinversions than expected based upon prior information about vertebrate …

Across Bacterial Phyla, Distantly-Related Genomes With Similar Genomic Gc Content Have Similar Patterns Of Amino Acid Usage, John Lightfield, Noah R. Fram, Bert Ely

Faculty Publications

The GC content of bacterial genomes ranges from 16% to 75% and wide ranges of genomic GC content are observed within many bacterial phyla, including both Gram negative and Gram positive phyla. Thus, divergent genomic GC content has evolved repeatedly in widely separated bacterial taxa. Since genomic GC content influences codon usage, we examined codon usage patterns and predicted protein amino acid content as a function of genomic GC content within eight different phyla or classes of bacteria. We found that similar patterns of codon usage and protein amino acid content have evolved independently in all eight groups of bacteria. …