Probing gene misregulation in bodyguard, lacerata and fiddlehead mutants

Although bodyguard (bdg), lacerata (lcr) and fiddlehead (fdh) mutations affect three unrelated genes, they trigger similar effects, i.e. ectopic organ fusion, increase of cuticle permeability. After performing cutin and wax analyses on these Arabidopsis thaliana mutants, which did not coincide with the putative enzyme functions, we hypothesised that these mutations trigger a complex response which may be visible at the transcriptional level. This analysis revealed that major changes in gene regulation are taking place in bodyguard (bdg), lacerata (lcr) and fiddlehead (fdh) mutants, massively affecting genes associated with lipid, cell wall and intracellular homeostasis but also with pathogen resistance. Plants carrying a stable allele of the bodyguard (bdg), lacerata (lcr) and fiddlehead (fdh) mutations, respectively, were grown on soil in parallel to wild type Columbia plants and under controlled growth conditions. Trays were periodically shifted to avoid any position effect and, to increase representativeness of the samples, each sample contains leaf tissue from 15 plants.

尽管保镖（bodyguard, bdg）、裂叶（lacerata, lcr）与羽叶（fiddlehead, fdh）三种突变分别作用于三个互不相关的基因，却可引发相似的表型效应，即异位器官融合与表皮通透性升高。我们对这些拟南芥（Arabidopsis thaliana）突变体开展角质与蜡质组分分析，结果与相关酶的推测功能并不相符，由此提出假说：这类突变会触发可在转录水平被观测到的复杂应答反应。后续转录分析显示，bdg、lcr及fdh突变体的基因调控发生显著变化，大量影响与脂质代谢、细胞壁稳态、细胞内稳态以及抗病性相关的基因。本研究将分别携带bdg、lcr和fdh稳定等位基因的植株，与哥伦比亚生态型野生型拟南芥一同在可控生长条件下种植于土壤中。为避免位置效应，培养托盘定期轮换摆放；为提升样本代表性，每份样本取自15株植株的叶片组织。