Abstract
Cardiolipin (CL) is widely distributed in various prokaryotes and eukaryotes as a membrane phospholipid. In eukaryotes, it is localized in inner membrane and contact site of mitochondria. CL is suggested to be involved in many mitochondrial functions. To know physiological roles of CL in higher plants, we identified the Arabidopsis gene CLS encoding a CL synthase and isolated mutants in which the CLS gene is disrupted by T-DNA insertion.
We have analyzed the mutants of CLS and found that (1) the mitochondria of cls/cls mutants show abnormalities in size and shape, (2) growth of cls/cls mutants delayed by comparison with wild type, especially in embryos and roots. These findings demonstrate that CLS plays a critical role in mitochondrial morphology and plant development.
