Biochemical data documenting variations in mucilage polysaccharide amount and macromolecular properties in a range of glycosyltransferase mutants

During Arabidopsis seed coat development, copious amounts of mucilage polysaccharides are produced in the epidermal cells. When hydrated on imbibition, these polysaccharides expand and are released to encapsulate the seed as a two layered hydrogel. Polysaccharides are synthesized from UDP-sugars by glycosyltransferases (GTs) and several GTs, with differing activities, have been identified that contribute to mucilage polysaccharide synthesis How these GTs orchestrate production of the complex polysaccharides found in mucilage remains to be determined. In this study, we generated a range of multiple GT mutants using either CRISPR/Cas9 targeted mutation or genetic crosses of existing T-DNA insertion mutants. Mucilage amounts and macromolecular properties (4 traits) were examined for four replicates from 31 different GT mutant combinations.