Germinal reversion of an unstable mutation for anthocyanin pigmentation in soybean

✍ Scribed by R. W. Groose; S. M. Schulte; R. G. Palmer

• Book ID: 104671895
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 625 KB
• Volume: 79
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0040-5752
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00225946

✦ Synopsis

Plants of the "w4-mutable" line of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] are chimeral for anthocyanin pigmentation. Mutable plants produce both near-white and purple flowers, as well as flowers of mutable phenotype with purple sectors on near-white petals. It is established here that the mutable trait is conditioned by an unstable recessive allele of the w4 locus that conditions anthocyanin biosynthesis. The gene symbol w4-m is assigned to the mutable allele. Allele w4-m was derived from a stable, wild-type W4 progenitor allele and reverts at high frequency to a stable, wild-type W4 allele. Reversion occurs both early and late during the development of the germ line. Several experiments give estimates of germinal reversion frequency, indicating that approximately 6% of mutable alleles revert to wild-type from one generation to the next. Allele w4-m exhibits many features typical of an allele controlled by a transposable element.