Background and Objective

Proof-of-concept for using activation tagging to generate poplar mutants was provided. In this proposal, already available mutants will be molecular analysed and new mutants will be generated by applying a highly efficient mutant induction system.

Approach

A number of highly innovative aspects are considered, namely (a) due to the low number of naturally available tree mutants, it is the first attempt to establish an efficient system to systematically generate mutants in poplar, a tree species, (b) with exception of Arabidopsis, rice and few others, it is novel to combine T-DNA and transposon activation tagging approaches, (c) it is a challenge to proof the involvement of the tagged (candidate) gene in a tree species by a transformation approach, (d) to develop a phenotyping strategy for activation tagged poplar plants, and (e) it is highly interesting to test different possibilities for the storage of mutant tissue (incl. cryopreservation) of a tree species.