A Homeobox Sequence Regulating Compound Leaf Development in Tomato

叶是植物的主要光合器官，对植物的生存至关重要。高等植物可以有单叶或复叶，有时这两种叶型可以出现在密切相关的物种中。Sinha博士将对番茄复叶发育进行遗传和分子分析。她从番茄中克隆了一个含有cDNA的同源盒T6。T6克隆映射接近两个显性叶突变，小鼠耳朵和卷曲，这两者都导致过量的叶复合。原位杂交实验表明，T6基因在发育中的叶原基和发育中的叶片边缘表达。在转基因番茄中过量表达该cDNA导致过度复叶。T6转录物的减少导致形成简单的无叶片叶。她根据现有的叶片突变提出了番茄复叶形态发生的假说。她将在老鼠耳朵、卷曲和其他现有的叶子突变之间进行遗传杂交，以完善她的假设。这些方法应该大大增加我们对复叶发育的理解。

Leaves are the primary photosynthetic organs on a plant and are critical to plant survival. Higher plants can have either simple or compound leaves and sometimes these two leaf types can occur in closely related species. Dr. Sinha will perform a gentic and molecular analysis of compound leaf development in tomato. She has cloned a homeobox containing cDNA, T6, from tomato. The T6 clone maps close to two dominant leaf mutations, Mouse ears and Curl, both of which lead to excess leaf compounding. In situ hybridization experiments indicate that the T6 gene is expressed in developing leaf primordia and developing blade margins. Over expression of the cDNA in transgenic tomato results in excessively compounded leaves. Reduction of the T6 transcript causes formation of simple bladeless leaves. She has formulated an hypothesis for compound leaf morphogenesis in tomato based on existing leaf mutations. She will perform genetic crosses between Mouse ears, Curl and other existing leaf mutations to refine her hypothesis. These approaches should substantially increase our understanding of compound leaf development.