Cuticular waxes on eceriferum mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana

We present cuticular wax chemical profiles for the leaves and stems of Arab idopsis wildtype Landsberg erecta and eleven isogenic ecerifum mutants. cer 5 cer10 to cer15, and cer17 to cer20. These cer mutants have wax profiles t hat are different from those of wildtype in chemical chain length distribut ion, amount per chemical class, and/or total wax load. Analyses of detailed leaf and stem wax profiles for these cer mutants have allowed us to place some of these mutants at specific steps in wax production. The cer13 gene i s predicted to affect release of the 30 carbon fatty acid from the elongati on complex or the reduction of C30 fatty acid to C30 aldehyde. The CER19 ge ne product is predicted to be involved in C28 to C30 fatty acyl-CoA elongat ion. The CER20 gene is predicted to affect the oxidation of C29 alkane to C 29 secondary alcohol. Several predicted gene products affect only stem spec ific steps in the wax pathway. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights re served.