Activation tagging library construction and mutant phenotype analysis

Activation tagging plays an important role in plant genomics studies. In this paper, an activation tagging library containing 50 000 Basta-resistant lines was constructed by mediated transformation of the mutant bzr1-D of Aribidopsis thaliana . Among these transformants, 47 lines showed obvious phenotypes, including late flowering time, dwarf growth habit, changed leaf shape, longer leaf petiole, leaves lacking trichomes, sterility and no kink between stem/leaf. Some T-DNA flanking sequences were obtained by TAIL (thermal asymmetric interlaced) and nested PCR. Results showed that the mutants contained one to three T-DNA insertions. The insertions were distributed in the first, fourth and fifth chromosomes of the genome.