| Abstract |
The mutable flaked (or af) lines of the common morning glory bear white flowers with colored flakes and sectors. The af allele shows incomplete dominance. Plants in the heterozygous state A/af bear lightly colored flowers with intensely colored flakes and occasionally with white sectors. We showed that the mutable af allele is caused by insertion of a new transposable element, Tip100, into the CHS-D gene intron. Tip100 is 3.9 kb long and belongs to the Ac/Ds family. Although the timing and frequency of the flower variegation vary in different lines, they carry an identical mutable allele. We also noticed that a flaked subline, bearing variegated flowers, carries a Tip100 derivative, Tip100-1. The structure of Tip100-1 contains an additional 48 bp terminal sequence as tandem repeats and its integration site is identical to that of Tip100. Another line, with stable white flowers, is a double mutant carrying two copies of Tip100 in the CHS-D gene. These results are discussed with regard to the variegated phenotypes of flowers in various mutable lines.
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