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. 1994 Feb;6(2):227–235. doi: 10.1105/tpc.6.2.227

Isolation of uvh1, an Arabidopsis mutant hypersensitive to ultraviolet light and ionizing radiation.

G R Harlow 1, M E Jenkins 1, T S Pittalwala 1, D W Mount 1
PMCID: PMC160429  PMID: 8148646

Abstract

A genetic screen for mutants of Arabidopsis that are hypersensitive to UV light was developed and used to isolate a new mutant designated uvh1. UV hypersensitivity in uvh1 was due to a single recessive trait that is probably located on chromosome 3. Although isolated as hypersensitive to an acute exposure to UV-C light, uvh1 was also hypersensitive to UV-B wavelengths, which are present in sunlight that reaches the earth's surface. UV-B damage to both wild-type and uvh1 plants could be significantly reduced by subsequent exposure of UV-irradiated plants to photoreactivating light, showing that photoreactivation of UV-B damage is important for plant viability and that uvh1 plants are not defective in photoreactivation. A new assay for DNA damage, the Dral assay, was developed and used to show that exposure of wild-type and uvh1 plants to a given dose of UV light induces the same amount of damage in chloroplast and nuclear DNA. Thus, uvh1 is not defective in a UV protective mechanism. uvh1 plants were also found to be hypersensitive to ionizing radiation. These results suggest that uvh1 is defective in a repair or tolerance mechanism that normally provides plants with resistance to several types of DNA damage.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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