Figure 1.
Leaf morphology and histology in the P14 6.3 line.
(A, B) Rosettes of (A) Ler and (B) P14 6.3 plants. (C) Top and (D) lateral views of a P14 6.3 plant showing fusion of the first pair of vegetative leaves. (E, F) Transverse sections of the central region of the lamina, midway between the leaf margin and the primary vein of (E) Ler and (F) P14 6.3 third-node leaves. Asterisks indicate large intercellular air spaces. (G) Margin to margin transverse sections of third-node leaves. pv: primary vein. Pictures were taken (A–D) 22 das and (E–G) 21 das. Scale bars: (A, B, D) 2 mm, (C) 1 mm, (E, F) 50 µm and (G) 200 µm.
Figure 2.
Inflorescence structure and floral morphology in P14 6.3.
(A) Lateral view of Ler and P14 6.3 inflorescences. (B, C) Details of abnormal structures observed in P14 6.3 stems: (B) a filamentous bulge, and (C) an aborted lateral flower. (D) Inflorescence apex in Ler and P14 6.3 plants. The red arrow indicates an aborted lateral flower. (E, F) Flowers of the inflorescence apex from (E) Ler and (F) P14 6.3. (G, H) Different sizes of (G) flowers from the inflorescence apex and (H) petals from Ler and P14 6.3. Pictures were taken 35 das. Scale bars: (A) 2 cm, (B, C) 0.5 mm, (D–F) 2 mm and (G, H) 1 mm.
Figure 3.
Silique morphology in P14 6.3.
(A, B) Siliques from (A) Ler and (B) P14 6.3 plants. (C–E) Three valves with a rough surface were shown in most P14 6.3 siliques: (C) front and (D) lateral views of closed siliques and (E) a silique with longitudinally open septa. (F) Seeds containing mature embryos and (G) aborted or unfertilized ovules (red arrows) in dissected P14 6.3 siliques. Pictures were taken 35 das. Scale bars: (A, B) 2 mm, (C–E) 1 mm and (F, G) 200 µm.
Figure 4.
Structure of the TCU2 gene, its mutant alleles and their effects on the TCU2 protein.
Blue and green capital letters represent nucleotides of exons eleven and twelve, respectively, of the TCU2 gene, which are present in TCU2 wild-type mRNA and the tcu2-1.1 and tcu2-1.2 mutant mRNA variants. Red lowercase letters highlight the intron that is not removed from tcu2-1.2 during splicing; black capital letters indicate the nucleotides from the 5′ end of wild type exon twelve that are removed from tcu2-1.1 during splicing. The TCU2 protein contains several tetratricopeptide repetitions (TPR; residues 89 to 181) and a NatB domain (residues 365 to 725). The mutant proteins have 436 (tcu2-1.1) and 434 (tcu2-1.2) amino acids. A picture of a 3%-agarose gel stained with ethidium bromide is shown at the lower right corner, which shows the PCR amplification products obtained from reverse transcribed total mRNA extracted from Ler and P14 6.3 whole plants.
Figure 5.
Some phenotypic traits of the tcu2-2 mutant.
(A–C) Rosettes of (A) tcu2-1/tcu2-1, (B) tcu2-2/tcu2-2 and (C) tcu2-1/tcu2-2 plants. (D) Siliques from tcu2-2/tcu2-2 (left) and Col-0 (right) plants. (E) tcu2-1/tcu2-2 (left) and wild-type sibling (right) siliques. Only three-valved siliques are shown from tcu2-2/tcu2-2 and tcu2-1/tcu2-2 in D and E; the wild-type siliques shown have two valves. (F) Detail of a tcu2-2/tcu2-2 silique with four valves. Pictures were taken (A, C) 21 das, (B) 18 das and (D-F) 50 das. Scale bars: (A–E) 2 mm and (F) 1 mm.
Figure 6.
Structure of the AGO10 gene and its alleles studied in this work.
Exons and introns are shown as black rectangles and lines, respectively. White boxes represent the 5′ and 3′ untranslated regions. Arrows point to the position of the zll-2 and pnh-2 point mutations.
Figure 7.
Rosette phenotype of amiR-TCU2 transgenic lines.
Pictures were taken 16 das. Scale bars: 2 mm.