Phylogenetically Distant BABY BOOM Genes From Setaria italica Induce Parthenogenesis in Rice
The combination of apomixis and hybrid production is hailed as the holy grail of agriculture for the ability of apomixis to fix heterosis of F 1 hybrids in succeeding generations, thereby eliminating the need for repeated crosses to produce F 1 hybrids. Apomixis, asexual reproduction through seed, a...
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Published in | Frontiers in plant science Vol. 13; p. 863908 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Frontiers Media S.A
14.07.2022
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The combination of apomixis and hybrid production is hailed as the holy grail of agriculture for the ability of apomixis to fix heterosis of F
1
hybrids in succeeding generations, thereby eliminating the need for repeated crosses to produce F
1
hybrids. Apomixis, asexual reproduction through seed, achieves this feat by circumventing two processes that are fundamental to sexual reproduction (meiosis and fertilization) and replacing them with apomeiosis and parthenogenesis, resulting in seeds that are clonal to the maternal parent. Parthenogenesis, embryo development without fertilization, has been genetically engineered in rice, maize, and pearl millet using
PsASGR-BABY BOOM-like
(
PsASGR-BBML
) transgenes and in rice using the
OsBABY BOOM1
(
OsBBM1
) cDNA sequence when expressed under the control of egg cell-specific promoters. A phylogenetic analysis revealed that
BABY BOOM (BBM)/BBML
genes from monocots cluster within three different clades. The
BBM
/
BBML
genes shown to induce parthenogenesis cluster within clade 1 (the ASGR-BBML clade) along with orthologs from other monocot species, such as
Setaria italica
. For this study, we tested the parthenogenetic potential of three
BBM
transgenes from
S. italica
, each a member of a different phylogenetic BBM clade. All transgenes were genomic constructs under the control of the
At
DD45 egg cell-specific promoter. All
SiBBM
transgenes induced various levels of parthenogenetic embryo development, resulting in viable haploid T
1
seedlings. Poor seed set and lower haploid seed production were characteristics of multiple transgenic lines. The results presented in this study illustrate that further functional characterization of
BBM
s in zygote/embryo development is warranted. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 This article was submitted to Plant Cell Biology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Plant Science These authors have contributed equally to this work and share first authorship Reviewed by: Takashi Okamoto, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan; Emidio Albertini, University of Perugia, Italy Edited by: Alfred (Heqiang) Huo, University of Florida, United States |
ISSN: | 1664-462X 1664-462X |
DOI: | 10.3389/fpls.2022.863908 |