Dissertation Research: A Genetic Analysis of Seed Coat Polymorphism Within Arabidopsis thaliana

了解自然发生的生物变异的遗传和发育基础就是了解进化本身的原始材料。种皮形态的自然变异将在模式植物拟南芥中进行遗传和发育解剖。因此，将完成对拟南芥参考品系(这是许多可用品系中最常用的)种皮发育的描述，并将作为比较化学诱导突变和自然发生(田间采集)突变的发育和基础遗传学的标准。人工突变体和自然突变体都将具有发育特征并进行基因定位。除了传统的互补试验(杂交个体并分析其后代)外，这些数据还将被用来确定影响这一发育途径中变异的基因座的数量以及自然种皮变异的频率和来源。种皮作为植物胚胎与其环境之间的接口，其作用是多种多样的。这种相对简单、高度分化的结构提供了一个独特的机会，可以研究进化上的重要问题，并有可能识别对商业上重要的器官的发育负责的基因，这些器官对棉花纤维和粘液等作物负责(例如，Metamucil)。

To understand the genetic and developmental bases of naturally-occurringorganismal variation is to understand the raw material of evolution itself.Natural variation in seed coat morphology will be genetically anddevelopmentally dissected in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Athorough description of seed coat development for a reference strain (thisis the most commonly-used among many available strains) of Arabidopsis willbe completed and will serve as the standard to which the development andunderlying genetics of both chemically-induced and naturally-occurring(field-collected) mutants will be compared. Both artificial and naturalmutants will be developmentally characterized and genetically mapped. Thesedata, in addition to traditional complementation tests (crossing individualsand analyzing their progeny), will be utilized to identify the number ofloci affecting variation in this developmental pathway and the frequency andorigins of natural seed coat variation.The seed coat serves as the interface between the plant embryo and itsenvironment and its roles are many and varied. This relatively simple, yethighly differentiated structure provides a unique opportunity to investigateevolutionarily important issues and the potential to identify genesresponsible for the development of a commercially important organresponsible for such crops as cotton fiber and mucilage, (e.g., Metamucil).