Plant Physiol. Tips for Better Browsing
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Plant Physiology Preview
Published on April 25, 2008; 10.1104/pp.108.120014

This Article
Right arrow Full Text (Plant Physiology Preview (PDF))
Right arrow Supplemental Data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
147/2/650    most recent
pp.108.120014v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Berthome, R.
Right arrow Articles by Budar, F.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Berthome, R.
Right arrow Articles by Budar, F.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by Berthome, R.
Right arrow Articles by Budar, F.

Received March 28, 2008
Accepted April 22, 2008

pur4 mutations are lethal to the male, but not the female gametophyte and affect sporophyte development in Arabidopsis

Richard Berthome , Muriel Thomasset , Marion Maene , Nathalie Bourgeois , Nicole Froger , and Francoise Budar *

Station de Genetique et d'Amelioration des Plantes, Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin, INRA UR254, centre de Versailles, route de Saint Cyr, 78026 Versailles cedex, France

* Corresponding author; email: budar{at}versailles.inra.fr.

Purine metabolism is crucial in living cells and involves three complex pathways in plants: the de novo synthesis, the salvage, and the degradation pathways. The relative importance of each pathway in plant development and reproduction, however, is still unclear. We identified two T-DNA insertions in the Arabidopsis PUR4 gene (At1g74260) that encodes formylglycinamidine ribonucleotide synthase (FGAMS; EC 6.3.5.3), the fourth enzyme in the de novo purine biosynthesis pathway. The mutated alleles were never transmitted through the pollen of heterozygous plants but could be inherited through the female gametophyte indicating that de novo purine synthesis is specifically necessary for pollen development. Because the pur4 mutations were lethal to the male gametophyte, homozygous pur4 plants could not be obtained. However, the reproductive phenotype of hetererozygous plants carrying the pur4-2 mutated allele was more severe than that carrying the pur4-1 mutated allele, and pur4-2/+ plants showed slightly delayed early development. We showed that the pur4-2 allele produces an antisense transcript and that the amount of PUR4 mRNA is reduced in these plants. Transient expression of a translational fusion with the green fluorescent protein (GFP) in Arabidopsis plantlets showed that the FGAMS protein is dually targeted to chloroplast and mitochondria, suggesting that at least some steps of the de novo purine biosynthesis pathway can take place in both organelles in Arabidopsis, a dual location previously thought to be a peculiarity of ureide-forming tropical legumes.






HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH
ASPB Publications PLANT PHYSIOLOGY THE PLANT CELL
Copyright © 2008 by the American Society of Plant Biologists