Annals of Botany 95/1 © Annals of Botany Company 2005; all rights reserved
Mechanisms and Control of Rapid Genomic Changes in Flax
Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106-7080, USA
* E-mail cac5{at}case.edu
Received: 9 December 2003 Returned for revision: 18 February 2004 Accepted: 23 April 2004
• Background and Aims The nuclear DNA of certain varieties of flax (Linum usitatissimum) can vary within a single generation when the plants are grown under specific environmental conditions. This review details the genomic variations that have been identified and associated with this environmental response.
• Conclusions The variation occurs across the whole spectrum of sequence repetition and has been shown to occur in the highly repeated, middle repetitive and low copy number sequences. Although the variation has been shown to be spread throughout the genome it does not occur at random, as similar molecular events have been shown to occur repeatedly. The changes in two labile regions in the nucleus, the ribosomal RNA genes and a site-specific insertion event, have been shown to occur within the period of vegetative growth and over a relatively short period of that growth. The gradual change in total nuclear DNA that has been described would then need to have arisen through an accumulation of changes occurring over the whole, or most of the, period of growth prior to flowering. The polymorphisms that result from these rapidly occurring genomic events have also been observed in many other flax and linseed varieties as well as in the wild progenitors of flax.
Key words: Linum usitatissimum, flax, insertion sequence, rDNA, nuclear DNA content, rapid genomic variation
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  L. W. Parfrey, D. J. G. Lahr, and L. A. Katz The Dynamic Nature of Eukaryotic Genomes Mol. Biol. Evol., April 1, 2008; 25(4): 787 - 794. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 K. Akimoto, H. Katakami, H.-J. Kim, E. Ogawa, C. M. Sano, Y. Wada, and H. Sano Epigenetic Inheritance in Rice Plants Ann. Bot., August 1, 2007; 100(2): 205 - 217. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 V. A. Fasoula and H. R. Boerma Intra-Cultivar Variation for Seed Weight and Other Agronomic Traits within Three Elite Soybean Cultivars Crop Sci., February 6, 2007; 47(1): 367 - 373. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 A. Trewavas A Brief History of Systems Biology: "Every object that biology studies is a system of systems." Francois Jacob (1974). PLANT CELL, October 1, 2006; 18(10): 2420 - 2430. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
P. SMARDA and P. BURES Intraspecific DNA Content Variability in Festuca pallens on Different Geographical Scales and Ploidy Levels Ann. Bot., September 1, 2006; 98(3): 665 - 678. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
S. Henikoff Rapid Changes in Plant Genomes PLANT CELL, November 1, 2005; 17(11): 2852 - 2855. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
M. D. BENNETT and I. J. LEITCH Plant Genome Size Research: A Field In Focus Ann. Bot., January 1, 2005; 95(1): 1 - 6. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|