Cuticular waxes on eceriferum mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana.

We present cuticular wax chemical profiles for the leaves and stems of Arabidopsis wildtype Landsberg erecta and eleven isogenic eceriferum mutants: cer5, cer10 to cer15, and cer17 to cer20. These cer mutants have wax profiles that are different from those of wildtype in chemical chain length distribution, amount per chemical class, and/or total wax load. Analyses of detailed leaf and stem wax profiles for these cer mutants have allowed us to place some of these mutants at specific steps in wax production. The cer13 gene is predicted to affect release of the 30 carbon fatty acid from the elongation complex or the reduction of C30 fatty acid to C30 aldehyde. The CER19 gene product is predicted to be involved in C28 to C30 fatty acyl-CoA elongation. The CER20 gene is predicted to affect the oxidation of C29 alkane to C29 secondary alcohol. Several predicted gene products affect only stem specific steps in the wax pathway.