Garden and potted plants with white spots on their leaves are so popular that they are specially selected for this feature. An international research team has now identified a new mutation in the plant Lotus japonicus which gives leaves with white spots. These results could be important for the improvement of garden and potted plants.
Garden and potted plants with white spots on their leaves are so popular that they are specially selected for this feature. An international research team has now identified a new mutation in the plant Lotus japonicus which gives leaves with white spots. These results could be important for the improvement of garden and potted plants.
Only few plant mutations are known to give plants with white spots on their leaves, and they are known primarily in the small plant thale cress (arabidopsis), and hence plant breeders are interested in developing new types.
In the plant molecular group at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics in Aarhus, the researchers have succeeded in finding a new mutation that can give the white spots. They have a collection of more than 100,000 plant lines (lotus.au.dk) where a so-called retrotransposon has inserted new copies in the genome, thus creating mutations. The retrotransposon has spontaneously become active in Lotus japonicus, which the research group uses as a model plant in their studies. The group has identified where new copies of the retrotransposon have entered the genome in the different lines. However, the mutants are smaller as they have not developed chloroplasts in the white spots, where they cannot use the energy from sunlight to build up their sugars.
Read more at Aarhus University
Image: An international research team has identified a new mutation in the plant Lotus japonicus which gives leaves with white spots. (Credit: Niels Sandal, Aarhus University)
