Mutation induction by ion beams in arabidopsis

An investigation was made on characteristics of ion beams for the biological effects and the induction of mutation using Arabidopsis plant as a model plant for the molecular genetics. Here, the characteristics of mutation at the molecular level as well as new mutants induced by ion beams were described. The ast and sep1 were obtained from the offspring of 1488 carbon ion-irradiated seeds respectively. The uvi1-uvi4 mutants were also induced from 1280 M1 lines. Thus, ion beams can induce not only known mutants such as tt, gl and hy but also novel mutants with high frequency. Even in the tt phenotype, two new mutant loci other than known loci were found. In chrysanthemum, several kinds of single, complex or stripped flower-color mutants that have been never induced by γirradiation, indicating that ion beams could produce a variety of mutants with the same phenotype. In conclusion, ion beams for the mutation induction are characterized by 1) to induce mutants with high frequency, 2) to show broad mutation spectrum and 3) to produce novel mutants. For these reasons, chemical mutagens such as EMS and low LET ionizing radiation such as X-rays and γ-rays will predominantly induce many but small modifications or DNA damages on the DNA strands. As the result, several point mutations will be produced on the genome. On the contrary, ion beams as a high LET ionizing radiation will not cause so many but large and irreparable DNA damage locally, resulting in production of limited number of null mutation. (M.N.)