Toward isolation of factors which regulate Arabidopsis endoreduplication

Abstract

*Endoreduplication is defined as nucleic DNA duplication without cell division. After some rounds of endoreduplicating cycle, cells contain multi-replicated DNA of a nucleus (polyploidy). Polyploid cells are often observed in various developed plant organs so that polyploidy is thought as a marker of differentiated cells. It is known that polyploidy occasionally correlate with cell enlargement. One mechanism is that plants control cell size through increasing polyploid level. However, little is known about molecular mechanisms of endoreduplication.
In order to identify genes involved in endoreduplication, we screened for mutants with enhanced polyploid level from activation-tagging lines using flow-cytometer. Until now, we identified 6 mutants as gain-of-function phenotypes from approximately 4500 lines. Here we report about precise screening method and phenotype of these mutants