FPsc Genetics Stocks

FPsc was derived from the Wisconsin Fast Plants (WFP) variety of rapid-cycling Brassica rapa. The WFP variety was developed at UW-Madison as a model organism — it grows rapidly and completes its lifecycle in about 5 weeks. Because of its fast-growing nature, WFP has been used for years to model plant growth in classrooms.

FPsc was developed after extensive inbreeding of the WFP line, resulting in plants that show homozygous alleles at essentially all loci and have lost the mechanism of self-incompatibility.

Wild-type

Because of its extensive inbreeding and allele homozygosity, FPsc phenotype and PCR-products show little variance. This genetic uniformity leads to a stronger correlation of

Mutagenesis was induced in FPsc plants through chemical mutagenesis, several FPsc mutant strains have been developed, including:

R500

R500 is a strain of B. rapa grown primarily in India for the oil in its seeds. It is a naturally-selfing variety, and has developed significant uniformity in its genome.

R500 is used as an outcross for FPsc. The F1 generation resulting from the R500xFPsc cross will be heterozygous at all loci. The F2 generation, produced from a self-pollination of the F1 generation, will have a mixture of genes from FPsc and R500 that may be homozygous or heterozygous at any loci (however, the genetic makeup of the F2 generation is still 50 percent FPsc and 50 percent R500).

When genetic material from the FPsc x R500 F2 generation is subjected to PCR and gel electrophoresis, a mixture of bands associated with FPsc and R500 will be present.

Mutant-types

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