Rapid evaluation of effective linear energy transfer in heavy-ion mutagenesis of Arabidopsis thaliana

概要

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Heavy-ion beams are an effective mutagen for use in plant breeding and analyses of gene function. Heavy-ion beams have high linear energy transfer (LET) and thus they effectively induce DNA double-strand breaks. To rapidly evaluate effective LETs for inducing mutations, we investigated mutation frequencies in the M1 generation using the Arabidopsis heterozygous mutant of the ALBINO PALE GREEN 3 gene. Leaves of heterozygous plants in which intact alleles were mutated showed white sectors. We irradiated heterozygous plants with heavy-ion beams with LETs ranging from 22.5 to 61.5 keV µm−1 and doses ranging from 0 to 450 Gy. The results showed that the effect of LETs could be classified into three types: first, the LET of 22.5 keV µm−1 did not effectively induce mutations, regardless of the dose; second, LETs of 30.0 or 42.5 keV µm−1 were not effective at low doses (100–200 Gy) but were effective at 300 Gy; third, LETs of 50.0 or 61.5 keV µm−1 produced comparatively high mutation frequencies at all doses. Irradiation with 42.5–61.5 keV µm−1 reduced seed productivity at the dose providing the highest mutation frequencies (300 Gy). We concluded that an LET of 30.0 keV µm−1 was optimal for obtaining Arabidopsis thaliana mutants in the M2 generation.