Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 109, Issue 18, Pages 7115-7120Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1111670109
Keywords
compound locus; morphological novelty; domestication; transcription factor; copy number variation
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Funding
- Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung
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Pod corn is a classic morphological mutant of maize in which the mature kernels of the cob are covered by glumes, in contrast to generally grown maize varieties in which kernels are naked. Pod corn, known since pre-Columbian times, is the result of a dominant gain-of-function mutation at the Tunicate (Tu) locus. Some classic articles of 20th century maize genetics reported that the mutant Tu locus is complex, but molecular details remained elusive. Here, we show that pod corn is caused by a cis-regulatory mutation and duplication of the ZMM19 MADS-box gene. Although the WT locus contains a single-copy gene that is expressed in vegetative organs only, mutation and duplication of ZMM19 in Tu lead to ectopic expression of the gene in the inflorescences, thus conferring vegetative traits to reproductive organs.
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