A thermo-sensitive white stripe-leaf mutant （tws） was selected from the M2 progeny of a japonica variety, Jiahua 1, treated by ^60 Co γ-radiation. In comparison with the wild type parent, the mutant displayed a phenotype of white stripe on the 3rd and 4th leaves, but began to turn normal green on the 5th leaf when grown at low temperatures （20℃ and 24℃）. Furthermore, the content of total chlorophyll showed an obvious decrease in the leaves with white stripe. These results suggest that the expression of the mutant trait was thermo-sensitive and correlated with the leaf age of seedlings. The genetic analysis indicated that the mutant trait was controlled by a single recessive nuclear gene, designated as tws. In addition, by using SSR markers and an F2 segregating population derived from the cross between the tws mutant and 9311, tws was mapped between the markers MM3907 and MM3928 with a physical distance of 86 kb on dce chromosome 4.
LI ChaoLIN Dong-zhiDONG Yan-junYE Sheng-haiZHANG Xiao-ming
Pentatricopeptide repeat （PPR） proteins, charac- terized by tandem arrays of a 35 amino acid motif, have been suggested to play central and broad roles in modulating the expression of organelle genes in plants. However, the molecular mechanisms of most rice PPR genes remains unclear. In this paper, we isolated and characterized a temperature-conditional virescent mutant, OsV4, in rice （Oryza sativa cultivar Jiahual （WT, japonica rice variety））. The mutant displays albino phenotype and abnormal chloroplasts at the three leaf stage, which gradually turns green after the four leaf stage at a low temperature （20℃）. But the mutant always develops green leaves and well-developed chloroplasts at a high temperature （32℃）. Genetic and molecular analyses uncovered that OsV4 encodes a novel chloroplast-targeted PPR protein including four PPR motifs. Further investigations show that the mutant phenotype is associated with changes in chlorophyll content and chloroplast development. The OsV4 transcripts only accumulate to high levels in young leaves, indicating that its expression is tissue-specific. In addition, transcript levels of some ribosomal components and plastid- encoded polymerase-dependent genes are dramatically re- duced in the albino mutants grown at 20℃. These findings suggest that OsV4 plays an important role during early chloroplast development under cold stress in rice.
