Celia M. James

The TRANSPARENT TESTA GLABRA1 (TTG1) locus regulates several developmental and biochemical pathways in Arabidopsis, including the formation of hairs on leaves, stems, and roots, and the production of seed mucilage and anthocyanin pigments. The TTG1 locus has been isolated by positional cloning, and its identity was confirmed by complementation of a ttg1 mutant. The locus encodes a protein of 341 amino acid residues with four WD40 repeats. The protein is similar to AN11, a regulator of anthocyanin biosynthesis in petunia, and more distantly related to those of the beta subunits of heterotrimeric G proteins, which suggests a role for TTG1 in signal transduction to downstream transcription factors. The 1.5-kb TTG1 transcript is present in all major organs of Arabidopsis. Sequence analysis of six mutant alleles has identified base changes producing truncations or single amino acid changes in the TTG1 protein.

Eight microsatellite primers were used to distinguish 23 olive cultivars that were parents, or potential parents, in a Spanish breeding program. Four of these microsatellites were particularly informative and were used to check the paternity of 11 olive progenies thought to come from selfings or controlled crosses involving nonemasculated flowers. Seven progenies were found to be highly contaminated, i.e. many seedlings had unexpected alleles, and only four were found to be pure or almost pure. Almost all the contamination detected came from outcrossing, indicating that placing the pollination bags well before anthesis is important and that emasculation to avoid selfing is unnecessary. More than two nonparental alleles per primer were found in each contaminated progeny, showing that more than one cultivar caused contamination. However, the allele data are consistent with `Picual' (the main commercial cultivar growing in the area where the crosses were made) being the contaminant in 48% of the nontrue seedlings (excluding `Picual' self progenies). Some other cultivars planted near the female trees were also found to be sources of contamination. The results obtained show that microsatellite analysis is a convenient technique to assess routinely the crosses made in breeding programs and to check self-incompatibility in olive. The pure progenies identified will be useful for reliable inheritance studies in olive, which have rarely been reported in the literature.

Amanda R. Walker, Paul A. Davison, Agnese C. Bolognesi-Winfield, Celia M. James, N. Srinivasan, Tom L. Blundell, Jeffrey J. Esch, M. David Marks, John C. Gray, The TRANSPARENT TESTA GLABRA1 Locus, Which Regulates Trichome Differentiation and Anthocyanin Biosynthesis in Arabidopsis, Encodes a WD40 Repeat Protein, The Plant Cell, Vol. 11, No. 7 (Jul., 1999), pp. 1337-1349