A Genome-Wide Association Study Reveals a Novel Regulator of Ovule Number and Fertility in Arabidopsis thaliana

摘要: Ovules contain the female gametophytes which are fertilized during pollination to initiate seed development. Thus, number of ovules that produced flower development is an important determinant crop yield and plant fitness. Mutants with pleiotropic effects on often alter ovules, but specific regulators ovule have been difficult identify in traditional mutant screens. We used natural variation Arabidopsis accessions new genes involved regulation number. The numbers per 189 were determined found broad phenotypic ranged from 39 84 pistil. Genome-Wide Association tests revealed several genomic regions associated T-DNA insertion lines candidate most significantly loci screened for phenotypes. NEW ENHANCER ROOT DWARFISM (NERD1) gene was fertility include both male gametophyte Overexpression NERD1 increased fruit a background-dependent manner more than doubled total flowers all backgrounds tested, indicating manipulation levels can be increase productivity.