A new Arabidopsis thaliana root gravitropism and chirality mutant

A new Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. root mutant, named clg1, was isolated from the Feldmann-Du Pont T-DNA insertional mutagenesis collection. It is characterized by primary roots that make early right-handed coils, show increased right-handed slanting, and reduced positive gravitropism. The mutant roots however did not exhibit increased resistance to IAA, but only a modest increment of resistance to the auxins 2,4 D, and NAA, and to the auxin transport inhibitors TIBA and NPA. By contrast, the mutant roots showed a notable resistance to plant hormone ethylene (given as ACC). clg1 appears to be new, since it complements the most known auxin and gravitropism mutants, maps to chromosome 5, and shows a phenotype largely different from that of the known ethylene mutants. The increased right-handed slanting (chirality) can possibly be a consequence of the reduced gravitropic response, since gravitropism and slanting are competitive growth-direction leading forces. The increased resistance to ethylene, seems to indicate that this phythormone plays a role in the gravitropic response of roots (as already proposed for shoots), and possibly in the regulation of the connected signal transduction pathway. The gene involved in the clg1 mutation, which is recessive, was mapped, as above reported, to chromosome 5, close to the visible marker tt3.