BonnMu : A Sequence-Indexed Resource of Transposon-Induced Maize Mutations for Functional Genomics Studies

Sequence-indexed insertional libraries in maize ( ) are fundamental resources for functional genetics studies. Here, we constructed a ( ) insertional library in the B73 inbred background designated A total of 1,152 -tagged F -families were sequenced using the -seq approach. We detected 225,936 genomic insertion sites and 41,086 high quality germinal insertions covering 16,392 of the annotated maize genes (37% of the B73v4 genome). On average, each F -family of the libraries captured 37 germinal insertions in genes of the Filtered Gene Set (FGS). All insertions and phenotypic seedling photographs of tagged F -families can be accessed via MaizeGDB.org Downstream examination of 137,410 somatic and germinal insertion sites revealed that 50% of the tagged genes have a single hotspot, targeted by By comparing our (B73) data to the (W22) library, we identified conserved insertion hotspots between different genetic backgrounds. Finally, the vast majority of and transposons was inserted near the transcription start site of genes. Remarkably, 75% of all insertions were in closer proximity to the transcription start site (distance: 542 bp) than to the start codon (distance: 704 bp), which corresponds to open chromatin, especially in the 5' region of genes. Our European sequence-indexed library of insertions provides an important resource for functional genetics studies of maize.