Description
An Arabidopsis mutant showing an altered ability to green on illumination after extended periods of darkness has been isolated in a screen for genomes uncoupled (gun) mutants. Following illumination for 24 h, 10-day-old dark-grown mutant seedlings accumulated 5 times more chlorophyll than wild-type seedlings and this was correlated with differences in plastid morphology observed by transmission electron microscopy. The mutant has been named greening after extended darkness 1 (ged1). We used microarrays to detail the global profiles of transcript abundances in the mutant in comparison to the wild type. Microarray analysis showed much lower amounts of transcripts of genes encoding seed storage proteins, oleosins and late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins in 7-day-old seedlings of ged1 compared to wild type. RNA-gel-blot analyses confirmed very low levels of transcripts of seed protein genes in ged1 seedlings grown for 2-10 days in the dark, and showed higher amounts of transcripts of photosynthesis-related genes in illuminated 10-day-old dark-grown ged1 seedlings compared to wild type.