Figure 1.

Crossing scheme of the experiment. Flowering individuals of Arabidopsis thaliana ecotype Ler-0 were subjected to γ-irradiation to induce Double Stranded DNA Breaks (DSBs). Four groups of plants were irradiated at 0 (Controls), 150, 300 and 600 Gray. Repair of DSBs resulted in the omission or inversion of interstitial fragments, so creating large chromosomal deletions and putative inversions in the gametes of these plants (M1 generation). Crossing of these plants to ecotype Col-0 was performed on the same day. The resulting offspring (M2) were analyzed on Ler-0 and Col-0 SNP presence at 2100 markers spread over the genome. Regions of Loss of Heterozygosity (LOH) indicating deletions (Δ) were readily observed and 16 promising M2Δ individuals carrying deletions of varying sizes spread over the five chromosomes were backcrossed to ecotype Ler-0 for recombination analyses following SNP detection.