Sectoring patterns of spontaneous and radiation-induced somatic pink mutations in the stamen hairs of a temperature-sensitive mutable clone of Tradescantia

The sectoring patterns of somatic pink mutations were analyzed in the stamen hairs of Tradescantia clone KU 20, a temperature-sensitive mutable clone. This clone is a blue/pink heterozygote, and its spontaneous pink mutation frequency increases up to about 40-fold at lower temperature. In order to elucidate the mutable nature of this clone, the sectoring patterns were analyzed on 1,123 spontaneous pink mutant events and on 2,725 pink mutant events induced by 0.606 and 1.28 Gy of gamma rays. The average number of pink cells per terminal pink mutant event (a row of pink cells including the terminal cell of a hair) occurred spontaneously was 7.40, whereas the number for the terminal pink mutant event induced by gamma rays varied from 3.33 to 9.88 depending on the post-irradiation days, i.e. , increased gradually as the number of days proceeded, then was stabilized at the level of spontaneous mutations after about three weeks. The average number of pink cells per interstitial pink mutant event (a single pink cell or two or more contiguous pink cells between blue cells) was 1.97 for spontaneous mutations, while the number for induced mutations varied also depending on the post-irradiation days. The ratio of the number of interstitial pink mutant events against that of terminal pink mutant events was 1.35 for spontaneous mutations, but the ratio for induced mutations varied also with post-irradiation period reaching 2.89 at the peak, indicating that more interstitial pink mutant events are induced by gamma rays than terminal pink mutant events, as compared with spontaneous mutations. The frequency of multiple pink mutant sectors in a hair was more than four times higher than that expected from independent occurrences in case of spontaneous mutations, while the frequency was close to the expectation in induced mutations, suggesting that somatic recombination is involved as one of the major causes of spontaneous mutations in this mutable clone.