Genetic characterization of late-flowering traits induced by DNA hypomethylation mutation in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Arabidopsis DNA hypomethylation mutation, ddm1, results in a variety of developmental abnormalities by slowly inducing heritable lesions at unlinked loci. Here, late-flowering traits observed at high frequencies in independently-established ddm1 lines were genetically characterized. In all of the four late-flowering lines examined the traits were dominant and mapped to the same chromosomal region, which is close or possibly identical to the FWA locus. The ddm1-induced phenotypic onsets are apparently not random mutation events, but specific to a group of genes, suggesting the underlying epigenetic mechanism. The DNA methylation mutant provide useful system for identifying epigenetically-regulated genes important for plant development.