An iAc/Ds gene and enhancer trapping system for insertional mutagenesis in rice

We evaluated a two-component transposon iAc/Ds system for generating a library of insertional mutants in rice. The constructs used have gene or enhancer trapping properties, plasmid rescue and T-DNA/Ds launching pad reporter facilities. Mutagenic iAc/Ds lines were produced by three methods: crossing iAc and Ds containing lines; co-transformation with iAc and Ds constructs; and super-transformation of iAc transgenic calli with Ds constructs. First and second generation screening populations, derived from crosses (F-2 and F-3) or double transformation (DtT(1) and DtT(2)), were analysed for stable insertion lines containing Ds transposed to locations unlinked to iAc. The average frequencies of putative stable insertion (PSI) lines in the F-2, DtT(1), F-3 and DtT(2) populations were 6.61, 5.58, 11.47 and 7.05% respectively, with large variations in these frequencies in screening populations derived from different mutagenic lines. Further analyses indicated that 41, 33, 65 and 64% of the PSI lines, respectively, have Ds transposed to locations unlinked to the original Ds launching pad. Using the plasmid rescue system, sequences flanking Ds from 137 PSI lines were obtained. Sixty-eight of these lines had unique insertions in genomic regions, of which 18 were known sequences. Because the average frequency of proven stable insertion lines in any of our screening populations has been less than 5%, we suggest that additional features should be incorporated in this two-component iAc/Ds system to increase the screening efficiency, and to make it suitable for large-scale insertional mutagenesis and determination of gene function in rice.