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Hormone mutants

Plant hormones are small molecules involved in virtually every step of plant development. The main kind of such signaling molecules recruited during plant evolution were the amino acid-derivatives auxin (indol) and ethylene (hydrocarbon), the terpene-derivatives abscisic acid (ABA), gibberellin (GA), brassinosteroid (BR) and strigolactone, as well as the adenine-derivative (purine) cytokinin. Other molecules with less effect on plant development but also considered to be hormones are jasmonic acid (JA) and salicylic acid (SA). Both have impact in the response of plants to the environment, especially biotic stress (herbivory and pathogens). Since tomato is the model of choice to study fruit formation and ripening, mutants affecting auxin, GA and ethylene, which are the main hormones controlling these developmental events, are of special interest. Additionally, tomato is an important model to study trichome formation and compound leaf architecture, which are largely controlled by the hormones JA, BR, cytokinin and GA.


As for any other genetic model, mutants with altered hormone levels in tomato have alterations in genes coding for enzymes in the biosynthesis or degradation pathways (or genes coding non-enzymatic molecules controlling them). Tomato mutants with alterations in the sensitivity to a given hormone present alterations in genes coding for components of the signal transduction pathway (receptor, repressor, transcription factor, etc). Please click on the name of each mutant to obtain information about its molecular identity (gene function, if known) and phenotype (gene effect of a given allele).

Auxin:
diageotropica (dgt)
entire (e)
DR5::GUS

Cytokinin:
35S::CKX2
ARR5::GUS

Abscisic acid (ABA):
sitiens (sit)
notabilis (not)
flacca (flc)

Ethylene:
Never ripe (Nr)
epinastic (epi)
rolD::ACCD

Gibberellin (GA):
gibberellin deficient3 (gib3)
procera (pro)

Brassinosteroid (BR):
curl3 (cu3)
dumpy (dpy)
Dwarf (D) – wild type allele

Jasmonic acid (JA):
jasmonic acid insensitive (jai1)
JERE::GUS

Salicylic acid (SA):
35S::nahG

Strigolactone:
35S::AsCCD7


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