Natural genetic variation in caesium (Cs) accumulation by Arabidopsis thaliana

Payne, K. A., Bowen, H. C., Hammond, J. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6241-3551, Hampton, C. R., Lynn, J. R., Mead, A., Swarup, K., Bennett, M. J., White, P. J. and Broadley, M. R. (2004) Natural genetic variation in caesium (Cs) accumulation by Arabidopsis thaliana. New Phytologist, 162 (2). pp. 535-548. ISSN 1469-8137 doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2004.01026.x

Abstract/Summary

Ingestion of caesium (Cs) radioisotopes poses a health risk to humans. Crop varieties that accumulate less Cs in their edible tissues may provide a useful countermeasure. This study was performed to determine whether quantitative genetics on a model plant (Arabidopsis thaliana) might inform such 'safe'-crop strategies. Arabidopsis accessions and recombinant inbred lines (RILs), from Landsberg erecta (Ler) x Cape Verdi Island (Cvi), Ler x Columbia (Col), and Niederzenz (Nd) x Col mapping populations, were grown on agar supplemented with subtoxic levels of Cs. Shoot Cs concentration varied up to three-fold, and shoot f. wt varied up to 25-fold within populations. The heritability of growth and Cs accumulation traits ranged from 0.06 to 0.28. Four quantitative trait loci (QTL) accounted for > 80 of the genetic contribution to the total phenotypic variation in shoot Cs concentration in the Ler x Col population. QTL identified in this study, in particular, QTL co-localizing to the top and bottom regions of Chromosomes I and V in two different mapping populations, are amenable to positional cloning and, through collinearity, may inform selection or breeding strategies for the development of 'safe' crops.