Figure 1.

Maize mutants used in this study. (a) Insertion sites of Mu transposons in Zm-hcf244 and Zm-hcf136 mutants. The Zm-hcf244-1 and Zm-hcf244-3 alleles arose independently but have an insertion at the same position. The sequences flanking each insertion are shown below, with the target site duplications underlined. (b) Mutant seedlings and their phenotypically normal siblings at the developmental stage used for experiments reported here. Plants were grown in soil for eight days as described in Materials and Methods. Zm-hcf244-1/-3 is the progeny of a cross between heterozygous plants harboring each allele. (c) Immunoblot analysis of leaf proteins in Zm-hcf244 and Zm-hcf136 mutants. Replicate blots were probed to detect HCF244, HCF136, AtpB (subunit of the chloroplast ATP synthase), D1, PsaD (subunit of PSI), and PetD (subunit of the cytochrome b₆f complex). An excerpt of one of the Ponceau S-stained blots illustrates relative sample loading and the abundance of the large subunit of Rubisco (RbcL).