•  
  •  
 
SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Abstract

Arabidopsis thaliana is a model organism used by scientists to study plant genetics, development, and physiology. CRISPR-Cas9 is a biotechnology tool adapted from a bacterial defense mechanism to precisely edit DNA using a guide mRNA and a Cas9 protein. This project aims to create CRISPR-CAS9 mutations in the APETALA3 (AP3) gene of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. AP3 is a class B gene critical to the petal and stamen development of Arabidopsis flowers. The AP3 protein contains a MADS domain, which binds directly to DNA and may be responsible for the expression of the CaRG-box genes. AP3 works in conjunction with PISTILLATA, AGAMOUS, APETALA1, and SEPALLATA proteins to specify the development in the second and third whorls of the flower. While several alleles of AP3 already exist, these alleles are strong alleles that knockout gene function. The advantage of creating weak alleles is that they often reveal gene functions that knockout mutations mask due to their severity. Thus, examining the phenotypes caused by weak alleles allows researchers to fully characterize gene function. The CRISPR-CAS9 system can make a variety of mutations including small insertions, deletions, or substitutions. We will specifically choose and examine weak alleles for this project. T3 plants have been identified as mutants through Sanger sequencing, where a single guanine nucleotide insert has induced a frame shift, leading to an early stop codon. Genotyping through an enzyme digest is used to identify mutants, whose flowers are imaged to characterize this phenotype.

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Tara Phelps-Durr

Department/Program

Biology

Submission Type

in-person poster

Date

4-4-2026

Rights

Copyright the Author(s)

Download

Share

COinS