Somatic mutations in Tradescantia stamen hairs exposed to ethyl methanesulfonate

• Published in: Environmental and experimental botany Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 19 - 25
• Main Authors: Ichikawa, Sadao, Takahashi, Catarina S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.01.1978
• Subjects: plant breeding; plant genetics
• ISSN: 0098-8472; 1873-7307
• DOI: 10.1016/0098-8472(78)90016-3

Young inflorescences of Tradescantia (BNL clone 02) heterozygous for flower color were treated with 0 (water), 0.1 or 0.5% EMS solutions for 2, 4, 8 or 16 hr. The frequency of somatic pink mutations in the stamen hairs scored 10–18 days after treatments was higher with the higher concentration of EMS and increased with lengthening duration of the treatment. The mutation frequency was also found to be clearly a function of the EMS dose in %·hr. The frequency of mutation increases with EMS dose; on a log-log graph the slopes were 1.37 or 1.31, when the mutation frequency was expressed as the number of pink mutant events per 10 3 hairs or per 10 5 cell divisions, respectively. That the slopes are steeper than 1 suggests the involvement of two-break deletions, but the possibility of insufficient penetration of EMS in cases of shorter treatments cannot be ruled out. The mutation frequencies observed were somewhat comparable to those induced by 0.25 to 10 rad of sparsely ionizing radiations at various dose rates. (1 − 4, 6, 16, 17)