Inheritance of chlorophyll deficiency traits in lettuce

Abstract

The inheritance of six chlorophyll deficient mutants of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) was studied. Chlorophyll deficient-3 (cd-3) is recessive and epistatic to light green (Ig). Chlorophyll deficient-4 (cd-4) is recessive and linked to an anthocyanin gene. Previously described virescent (vi) is epistatic to cd-4. Dappled (dap) is a recessive allele. Dappled and sickly (si) together appear to be lethal. Virescent is epistatic to dappled and dappled is epistatic to light green. Chlorophyll deficient-5, -6, and -7 (cd- 5, cd-6, cd-7) appear to be unlinked recessive alleles, although cd-5 and cd- 6 may possibly be allelic. Chlorophyll deficient-5 and/-6 are both epistatic to cd-7.