Mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana hypersensitive to DNA-damaging treatments.

A simple screening method was developed for the isolation of Arabidopsis thaliana mutants hypersensitive to X-ray irradiation. The root meristem was used as the target for irradiation with sublethal doses of X rays, while protection of the shoot meristem by a lead cover allowed the rescue of hypersensitive individuals. We isolated nine independent X-ray-hypersensitive mutants from 7000 M2 seedlings. Analysis of three chosen mutants (xrs4, xrs9 and xrs11) showed that alterations in single recessive alleles are responsible for their phenotypes. The mutations are not allelic but linked and map to chromosome 4, suggesting mutations in novel genes as compared to previously mapped mutant alleles. Importantly, hypersensitivity to X rays was found to correlate with hypersensitivity to the DNA-alkylating agent mitomycin C, which provokes interstrand crosslinks, and/or to methyl methanesulfonate, which is known as a radiomimetic chemical. These novel phenotypes suggest that the mutants described here are altered in the repair of DNA damage, most probably by recombinational repair.

Arabidopsis thaliana mutants altered in homologous recombination.

Homologous recombination contributes both to the generation of allelic diversity and to the preservation of genetic information. In plants, a lack of suitable experimental material has prevented studies of the regulatory and enzymatic aspects of recombination in somatic and meiotic cells. We have isolated nine Arabidopsis thaliana mutants hypersensitive to x-ray irradiation (xrs) and examined their recombination properties. For the three xrs loci described here, single recessive mutations were found to confer simultaneous hypersensitivities to the DNA-damaging chemicals mitomycin C (MMCs) and/or methyl methanesulfonate (MMSs) and alterations in homologous recombination. Mutant xrs9 (Xrays, MMSs) is reduced in both somatic and meiotic recombination and resembles yeast mutants of the rad52 epistatic group. xrs11 (Xrays, MMCs) is deficient in the x-ray-mediated stimulation of homologous recombination in somatic cells in a manner suggesting a specific signaling defect. xrs4 (Xrays, MMSs, MMCs) has a significant deficiency in somatic recombination, but this is accompanied by meiotic hyper-recombination. A corresponding phenotype has not been reported in other systems and thus this indicates a novel, plant-specific regulatory circuit linking mitotic and meiotic recombination.