An Arabidopsis mutant with a reduced level of cab140 RNA is a result of cosuppression.

We analyzed a mutant of Arabidopsis with a severely reduced level of cab140 RNA. This mutant, named lct for low level of cab140 transcript, was obtained during a selection for phytochrome signal transduction mutants. The selection was based on reduced expression of the tumor morphology shoots gene (tms2), an introduced counter-selectable marker under the control of the cab140 promoter. Expression of the introduced cab140::tms2 gene was also greatly reduced in lct, but surprisingly, expression of other phytochrome-regulated genes was not comparably affected. Furthermore, the lct phenotype could not be separated genetically from the T-DNA insert; thus, we suggest that this phenotype was caused by cosuppression of the introduced construct and the endogenous cab140 gene, and that the mutation causing the cosuppression was located on the T-DNA insert. In vitro nuclear transcription experiments demonstrated that the suppression was occurring at the level of transcription. We also found that the suppressed cab140 genes were not significantly more methylated than the nonsuppressed cab140 genes.