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UV-B damage amplified by transposons in maize

Nature volume 397, pages 398–399 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

While absorbing visible light energy for photosynthesis, plants are unavoidably exposed to ultraviolet radiation, which is particularly harmful at shorter wavelengths (UV-B radiation). Ozone depletion in the atmosphere means that plants receive episodic or steadily increasing doses of UV-B, which damages their photosynthetic reaction centres, crosslinks cellular proteins, and induces mutagenic DNA lesions1. Plant adaptive mechanisms of shielding and repair are therefore critical to survival — for example, somatic tissues of maize and Arabidopsis defective in phenolic sunscreen pigments2, 3 incur increased DNA damage, and mutants defective in DNA repair4,5 are killed by UV-B.

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Figure 1: Mutator transposon properties.
Figure 2: Northern blot to detect mudrA transposase transcripts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, 94305-5020, California, USA

    Virginia Walbot

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  1. Virginia Walbot
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Walbot, V. UV-B damage amplified by transposons in maize. Nature 397, 398–399 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/17043

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