Calvin Researchers Chase Hosta DNA

July 12, 2006 == MEDIA ADVISORY

After four years attempting to trace hosta ancestry through DNA
fingerprinting, Dave Koetje has come to a conclusion: "Hostas are weird."

Since 2002 Koetje, a Calvin College biology professor and director of the
college's biotechnology program, along with various student researchers, have
been trying to track hosta parentage genetically, research that is funded by
the American Hosta Society and Calvin's science division and biology
department.

The project is a collaboration with Walter's Gardens, a Zeeland-based
perennial plant wholesaler, which grows its many varieties of hostas in tissue
culture.

Hostas, whether grown in nature or in tissue culture regularly produce
mutations or "sports."

Koetje notes that the mutant might have a new variegation pattern, or it
might have some speckles on it, something that makes it stand out. The plant's
mutating tendency accounts for some 4,500 varieties of hostas that have
descended from a mere three or four hosta species.

Plant purveyors typically patent their new varieties, but it is difficult to
distinguish a sport grown in one nursery from a sport grown in another.

Clarence Falstad, the tissue culture lab manager at Walter's Gardens, asked
for help in determining hosta parentage genetically - to establish a hosta
family tree - and the American Hosta Society contributed $5,500 to fund the
project.

Koetje set out to determine how hostas are related to one another using
Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) or DNA fingerprinting. He
approached his hosta research thinking the mutations that occur to produce a
sport would be so small he wouldn't be able to measure them.

The opposite is true.

"There's such a big genetic change," he says, "I can't tell if parents and
children are related to each other. It's like a bomb goes off in a nucleus.
It reminds us of what they're discovering with cancer, but in this case, you
don't end up with runaway cell growth. You end up with slight changes in leaf
pattern."

For the full story see www.calvin.edu/news
Contact Koetje (COO CHEE) at 616-526-7047 or dkoetje@calvin.edu

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Received on Wed Jul 12 08:56:47 2006