Genetic and Developmental Analyses of the Systematics of Maize

了解发育过程的遗传基础是现代生物学的一个基本问题。系统生物学的研究可以通过阐明一个物种向另一个物种转变过程中形态发生变化的遗传基础，为发育提供重要的新见解。因为形态上的巨大差异可能会在相对较短的时间内出现，形态上不同的生物可能仍然是相互干扰的，因此可以接受遗传和发育的联合分析。这种现象的一个例子是玉米(Zea Mays SSP.虽然它们是完全相互干扰的，但它们在成虫形态上有很大的不同。这项拟议的研究将描述玉米和特罗辛特之间显著形态差异的遗传和发育基础。这将通过为控制这些生物之间的形态差异的基因创建近等基因系来实现。这些近等基因系将基本上是纯的teosinte，除了已被导入的玉米基因组的单个区域。将对近等基因系进行分析，以确定玉米基因组的单个区域对形态发生的影响。对基因组中对形态发生有显著影响的区域的精细作图将被用来调查这些区域是包含单个主要基因座还是几个相连的基因座，每个基因座都有单独的小影响。

Understanding the genetic basis of developmental processes is a fundamental concern of modern biology. Research in systematic biology can provide important new insights into development by elucidating the genetic basis of changes in morphogenesis that occurred during the transformation of one species into another. Because profound differences in morphology can arise over relatively short periods of time, morphologically diverse organisms can remain interfertile, and thus be amenable to combined genetic and developmental analyses. One example of this phenomenon involves maize (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis), which differ dramatically in adult morphology despite the fact that they are fully interfertile. The proposed research will characterize the genetic and developmental basis of the dramatic morphological differences between maize and teosinte. This will be accomplished by the creation of near-isogenic lines for the genes controlling the morphological differences between these organisms. These near-isogenic lines will be essentially pure teosinte except for single regions of the maize genome that have been introduced into them. The near-isogenic lines will be analyzed to determine the effects of the single regions of the maize genome on morphogenesis. Fine-mapping of regions of the genome with dramatic effects on morphogenesis will be used to investigate whether these regions contain single major loci or several linked loci, each with individually small effects.