Abstract
In higher plants, peroxisomes have vital roles in fatty acid degradation and photorespiration. To better understand peroxisome biogenesis, we attempted to generate mutants having peroxisomes with different sizes or shapes, as these mutants would be expected to be defective in peroxisomal division. We used seeds of a transgenic Arabidopsis termed GFP-PTS1 in which peroxisomes can be visualized with GFP. GFP-PTS1 seeds were mutagenized with EMS and allowed to germinate. Of about 37,000 M2 plants under the fluorescence microscope, we identified eighty-two mutants that have abnormal peroxisome morphology. apm (aberrant peroxisome morphology) mutants exhibited the tissue- and/or organ-specific patterns of GFP as follows, (1) long peroxisomes, (2) giant peroxisomes, (3) GFP fluorescence in the cytosol as same as in peroxisomes, and (4) different distribution. In this presentation, we would like to discuss the phenotypes of apm mutants.
