Identification of paternal factors that promote endosperm development in Arabidopsis thaliana

• Project/Area Number: 25650099
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Plant molecular biology/Plant physiology
• Research Institution: Nara Institute of Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: Wada Yuko 奈良先端科学技術大学院大学, バイオサイエンス研究科, 助教 (50379541)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2015)
• Budget Amount: ¥4,160,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥960,000); Fiscal Year 2014: ¥2,210,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥510,000); Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,950,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥450,000)
• Keywords: 植物 / 種子 / エピジェネティクス

Outline of Final Research Achievements

To identify the paternal factors that promote seed development, we performed genome-wide association study (GWAS) of intraspecific seed size of Arabidopsis thaliana. We performed GWAS for size of seeds sired by crossing between Col-0 accession as pistil parents and 123 accessions as pollen donors. We also performed GWAS for seed size of tetraploid Col-0 as pistil parents and 65 accessions as pollen donors. In total, eight association signals for seed size were identified, five signals for crosses between diploid parents and three signals for interploidy crossing.