In the article by Y. Onodera, K. Nakagawa, J. R. Haag, D. Pikaard, T. Mikami, T. Ream, Y. Ito and C. S. Pikaard (Genetics 180: 207–218) entitled “Sex-Biased Lethality or Transmission of Defective Transcription Machinery in Arabidopsis,” on page 215, right column, the text beginning with “It is noteworthy that the SeedGenes” should be replaced with:
It is noteworthy that the SeedGenes Project database (http://www.seedgenes.org/index.html) (Tzafrir et al. 2003, 2004) includes information for two T-DNA insertion alleles of nrpb2, named emb1989-1 and emb1989-2. These mutant alleles behave as recessive embryonic lethals, not female gametophytic lethals. Homozygous mutant seeds typically contain embryos arrested at preglobular or early globular stages of development. Analysis of NRPB2 sequences flanking the T-DNA insert in emb1989-1 confirmed that one T-DNA border is located 34 nucleotides upstream from the translation start site (Y. Onodera, data not shown). The location of a second border noted at SeedGenes remains unresolved. Because the protein coding region is not disrupted, it is possible that the emb 1989-1 allele is partially functional, which may explain how development can sometimes proceed to stages beyond what we have observed for the nrpb2-1 and nrpb2-2 alleles. We currently lack analogous data concerning the precise location of the T-DNA in the emb 1989-2 allele.