A new allele, SC148, of the
sulfurea locus in
Lycopersicon esculentum was detected in a line derived after repeated selfing of plants that had been regenerated from tissue culture. Like the original
sulf mutant, SC148 displayed two mutant phenotypes: green-yellow speckled plants in which the
sulf
vag allele is present and pure yellow plants homozygous for the
sulf
tpura allele. Although the mutant alleles are recessive to wild-type, an unpredictable number of variegated and pura plants appeared in F
1 progenies that had been derived from crosses between SC148 and wild-type tomato plants. The presence of the wild-type
sulf
+ allele in these variegated heterozygotes was demonstrated using a cytological marker that is linked to
sulf. It is concluded that the mutant
sulf allele of SC148, imposes its variegated expression state on the wild-type
sulf
+ allele present in
sulf
+/sulf
vag heterozygotes. This behaviour, known as paramutation, has also been described for the original
sulf allele. The SC148 allele, however, seems to induce changes at an earlier stage in development. The analogy of this paramutagenic system to dominant position effect variegation in
Drosophila is discussed.
Key words
Sulfurea
- Tomato - Paramutation - Dominant position effect variegation
Communicated by R. Hagemann