The Journal of Heredity 1986:77(6):389-393
© 1986 The American Genetic Association 77:389-393
research-article |
Unstable expression of an R allele with a3 in maize
A recessive intensifier of plant color
The authors are affiliated, respectively, with the Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., Canada V8W 2Y2; and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Agronomy, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211. This study was supported by grants from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the University of Victoria and support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Abstract
The gene a3 In maize is a recessive Intensifier of plant color. Certain R-g (colored aleurone, green anthers) alleles of the R locus express a variety of unstable phenotypes with a3, ranging from a few fine sectors of purple pigment in an otherwise green plant, to a dark diffuse purple in all plant parts. Sectors that include germinal tissues lead to heritable, but not permanently stable, changes. Thus a sector on one ear included a seed with strong purple pericarp. The plant that grew from this seed was uniformly purple in all tissues. The purple phenotype was determined by a particular R-g allele, but was expressed only In a3 plants. Progeny from this purple plant included a range of variegated phenotypes as well as purples. Some lines derived from the original plant are still purple; others have reverted to a near green form. Changes from green to a diffuse purple phenotype occur when such ‘green’ lines are outcrossed to unrelated A3 stocks and then self-fertilized to produce homozygous a3 plants. The diffuse pigment can be distributed uniformly in all tissues or it can be tissue specific. Instability of the diffuse phenotype is expressed mainly as somatic sectors with altered levels of Intensity. This instability is believed to reflect heritable but unstable changes in the particular R-g allele.
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