Characterization of X-ray-generated floral mutants carrying deletions at the S-locus of distylous Turnera subulata.

To investigate the genetic architecture of distyly in Turnera subulata and test the hypothesis that a supergene determines distyly, we used X-ray mutagenesis to generate floral mutants. Based upon the crossing design, all progeny were expected to be short-styled. Of 3982 progeny screened, 10 long-styled mutants, one long homostyle and one short homostyle were recovered. Assays for molecular markers tightly linked to the S-locus showed that the mutants were missing 1-3 markers indicating they are deletion mutants. We investigated the incompatibility phenotype of the mutants and found that both their styles and pollen behaved like those of the long-styled morph. There was a variation in the absolute length of styles, stamens and pollen size of the long-styled mutants. Furthermore, long-styled mutants possessing larger deletions tended to have their anthers and stigmas in closer proximity. We explored the inheritance of the S-locus mutations and found that only one of the deletion mutations was transmitted to progeny where we recovered seven such progeny. Remarkably, our data are consistent with the supergene model (GPA/gpa) of Primula. The long homostyle mutant appears to have deletions involving both the G and P loci. The other mutants appear to have deletions of the entire S-locus. The mutants generated will serve as a valuable resource for the molecular dissection of the S-locus region, and in the identification of genes determining distyly.