A maternally inherited mutant ofZea maysL. lacks the cytochrome b/f complex

✍ Scribed by George Mourad; Mary Polacco; Mary Jane Skögen-Hagenson; David Morris; Donald Robertson

• Book ID: 104753618
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 726 KB
• Volume: 16
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0172-8083
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00393403

✦ Synopsis

A maternally inherited yellowgreen mutant (myg-1) of maize is described that lacks the thylakoid cytochrome b/f complex. Affected individuals segregate in sectors on ears indicating that a cytoplasmic genetic component is affected. Because there is an effect on a thylakoid complex, and completely yellowgreen mutant seedlings grow normally until endosperm reserves are exhausted, the lesion is probably in the plastome and not in the mitochondrial genome. Southern blot analyses show no major insertions or deletions in or surrounding plastome genes pet A and pet B, which encode subunits of the missing cytochrome complex. There is, however, a significant decrease in transcripts of these genes. The myg-1 mutation is the first non-Mendelian maize mutant which has been reported to affect a defined chloroplast complex.