The viviparous-1 (vp) gene of maize blocks the normal arrest of embryo development, thereby causing precocious germination of the seed on the mother plant. The objectives of this proposal are to 1) isolate the vp gene by transposon tagging and determine its molecular structure and 2) identify the vp gene product by making antibody to a synthetic peptide derived from the gene sequence. Dr. McCarty's goal to clone the vp gene is very important for the study of developmental gene regulation and seed development in maize. The findings generated by this work will clearly set the stage for significant future work.
