Fig. 4

Phenotypic characterization of Arabidopsis c3h1 mutants. a Position of the T-DNA insertion, mature Arabidopsis plants and transverse stem sections (UV-autofluorescence and phloroglucinol-HCl staining) of c3h1 mutants and wild-type controls. b Lignin levels (upper panel) and relative monolignol composition (lower panel) determined by thioacidolysis of c3h mutants in both Col-0 and Wassilewskija (Ws) backgrounds. c Screening for Arabidopsis c3h1/cse2 double mutants. T- and G- are T-DNA and gene specific primers used for genotyping. No c3h1/cse2 double mutants were obtained from over 300 F2 plants screened, and so cse2C3H1+/– (i.e. homozygous for cse2 and heterozygous for c3h1; lanes 4, and 11) and c3h1CSE2+/– (i.e., homozygous for c3h1 and heterozygous for cse2; lanes 5 and 14) were subsequently generated and their lignin content and composition estimated (Supplementary Fig. 8). The full uncropped gels are provided as a Source Data file. d Aborted seeds in c3h1CSE2+/– and cse2C3H1+/– mutant lines determined in 8 to 18 individual siliques (segregation ratios estimated in Supplementary Table 2). e Comparison of the self-fertilized F3 seeds of mutants and WT plants by light microscopy in young (middle panel) and mature (right panel) siliques. The left panel shows a magnification of the aborted ovules (circles) in cse2C3H1+/– mutants. f Visual phenotype and transverse stem sections (UV-autofluorescence and Mäule staining) of c3h1/CSE-RNAi lines and c3h1 controls. g Total lignin amount and composition of c3h1/CSE-RNAi lines and c3h1 controls. h Visual phenotype and transverse stem sections (UV-autofluorescence and Mäule staining) of cse2/C3H-RNAi lines and cse2 controls. i Total lignin amount and composition of cse2/C3H-RNAi lines and cse2 controls. Mäule staining protocol was used in f and h to assess lignin distribution and composition. CWr cell wall residue. Error bars indicate mean ± SD, two-sided unpaired t-test. Data points for all biological replicates are shown