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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #70107
Title: EMBRYOLOGICAL STUDY OF A FEMALE PARTIALLY-STERILE SOYBEAN MUTANT USING CONFOCAL SCANNING LASER MICROSCOPY

Author
item PEREIRA, TELMA - UENF-BRAZIL
item ILARSLAN, HILAL - ISU
item PALMER, REID

Submitted to: Brazilian Journal of Genetics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/15/1996
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Female-sterile mutants are rare in the plants. The low frequency with which female mutations have been described to date most likely reflects the technical complexity of identifying the mutations rather than any other factor. Female-sterile mutants are useful because female reproductive development can be separated into distinct components, because each mutation may reflect a different step in seed production. Abnormal development can be compared to normal seed development. Hopefully, programmed changes can be made in normal development for increased seed quality components. We used a special microscope to optically section plant material using laser beams allowing the three-dimensional structure of specimens to be studied. Our partial female-sterile soybean mutant was shown to have abnormalities affecting nutrient supply to the young growing embryo. The embryo starved to death. This information will be most useful to those studying soybean genetics.

Technical Abstract: Four partial female-sterile mutants were recovered from a gene-tagging study in soybean. One mutant, PS-1 was a single recessive gene and gave a reduced number of seeds per pod. The objective of our study was to determine the utility of using the Confocal Scanning Laser Microscope (CSLM) to study the megasporogenesis and megagametogenesis of the PS-1 mutant. CSLM uses optical instead of mechanical sectioning of specimens, allowing the three-dimensional structure to be visualized microscopically. The simplicity of the procedure and reduction of steps in the microscopic examination of a large number of samples at different developmental stages makes the CSLM a promising technique. By using the CSLM, microscopic evidence indicated that ovule abortion in the PS-1 mutant was due to abnormally fused polar nucleus behavior. The endosperm was not produced and the young embryo starved to death.