Phenotypic analysis of the 35S:AIF-C and AIF-C+SRDX Arabidopsis plants and the detection of gene expression in Arabidopsis plants with altered AIF expression. (A) A 40-day-old 35S:AIF-C plant (right) was sterile and produced short siliques (arrowed), whereas a wild-type plant (left) produced a well-developed, long silique. (B and C) The wild-type inflorescence (B) contained elongated siliques, whereas short and undeveloped siliques were observed in the 35S:AIF-C plant (C). (D) A 50-day-old AIF-C+SRDX plant was sterile and produced short siliques. (E) The AIF-C+SRDX flower that was manually pollinated with AIF-C+SRDX pollen developed a well-elongated silique (arrowed), whereas short siliques (s) developed without manual pollination. (F) Close-up of a well-elongated silique (AIF-C+SRDX×AIF-C+SRDX) (left) and a short silique (right) from (E). (G) The emasculated wild-type flower that was pollinated with AIF-C+SRDX pollen developed an elongated silique. (H) The AIF-C+SRDX flower that was pollinated with wild-type pollen developed elongated siliques (left), whereas short siliques (right) developed in the absence of wild-type pollen pollination. (I) mRNA accumulation for AIF, DAD1, LOX1, LOX2, LOX3, AOS, AOC1, AOC2, AOC3, AOC4, OPR3, and OPCL1 as determined by real-time quantitative RT–PCR. Total RNAs that were isolated from the flower buds before stage 12 of 35S:AIF-C (AIF-C), AIF-C+SRDX, AIF-C+VP16, and wild-type Columbia (WT) plants were used as templates. The columns represent the relative expression of the genes. The genes showing clear down-regulation in the 35S:AIF-C and AIF-C+SRDX plants and up-regulation in the AIF-C+VP16 plants are boxed. The transcript levels of these genes were determined using 2–3 replicates and were normalized using UBQ10. The expression of each gene was relative to that in the wild-type plant, which was set at 1. The error bar represents the standard deviation. Each experiment was repeated twice with similar results. The asterisks indicate a significant difference from the wild-type value (*P < 0.05).