Fig. 5: The mddcc mutant exhibits a suite of extreme developmental defects and fails to flower. | Nature Communications

Fig. 5: The mddcc mutant exhibits a suite of extreme developmental defects and fails to flower.

From: DNA methylation-free Arabidopsis reveals crucial roles of DNA methylation in regulating gene expression and development

Fig. 5

a Phenotypes of 11-day-old seedlings of the indicated genotypes on 1/2 MS media. Scale bar, 1 cm. b Phenotypes of 35-day-old plants of the indicated genotypes. After growing for 14 days on 1/2 MS media, the plants were transplanted into soil for 21 days of growth. Based on the rosette radius, the phenotypes of the mddcc mutant were classified into Weak, Medium and Strong, as indicated; the bar plot shows the relative abundance of each of these categories. c The mddcc mutant never flowers. Left, bar pot showing the flowering times of the indicated genotypes grown in long-day conditions. The data are the means ± SD of the biological repeats (n = 13). Right, phenotypes of 84-day-old and 125-day-old mddcc plants. After growing for 14 days on 1/2 MS media, the plants were transplanted into soil for 70 or 111 days of growth. Scale bar, 1 cm. d Heat maps showing the expression and DNA methylation patterns of flower development-related genes (upper panel), cytoskeleton organization-related genes (middle panel), and trichome differentiation-related genes (lower panel) in the indicated genotypes. Flower development-related genes (see Supplementary Data 1) were selected from the overlap between GO:0009908 (flower development) and DEGs in mddcc. Cytoskeleton organization-related genes (see Supplementary Data 1) were selected from microtubule-related GO terms over-represented in the subset of down-regulated genes common to met1-9 and mddcc (Fig. 2c). Trichome differentiation-related genes (see Supplementary Data 1) were identified from the overlap between GO:0010026 (trichome differentiation) and down-regulated genes in mddcc. e Snapshots of expression and DNA methylation levels over AT4G25530 (FWA) in the indicated mutants. f Representative images of pavement cell morphology of cotyledons from 11-day-old WT, ddcc, met1-9, and mddcc seedlings. Cell outlines were visualized with PI. Scale bar: 100 μm. Experiments were independently repeated two times with similar results. g Trichome branch number in WT, ddcc, met1-9, and mddcc. The numbers above the bars indicate the total number of trichomes analyzed. Trichomes were observed from the first true leaf of 11-day-old plants. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

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