TinII intron, an enhancer to affect the function of the cytoplasmic male sterility related gene T in Brassicajuncea

• Published in: 中国科学：生命科学英文版 no. 12; pp. 1107 - 1112
• Main Author: JIN ZhuPing WU LingLing CAO JiaShu CHEN ZhuJun PEI YanXi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: 内含子; 函数; 发育相关基因; 增强子; 细胞质雄性不育; 花椰菜花叶病毒; 转基因植物; 转录水平
• ISSN: 1674-7305

The T gene, which was cloned from the mitochondria of tumorous stem mustard （Brassica juncea var. tumida）, is a cytoplas- mic male sterility （CMS）-related gene that can produce two transcripts, T1170 and T1243. The latter is transcribed with the un- cleaved intron Tinll. In our previous study, transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants over-expressing the T1243 transcript （OE-T1243） showed a severe male-sterile phenotype, whereas OE-Tll70 plants did not. However, the functional mechanism of the T gene in B. Juncea remained unknown. In this study, microscopic analyses of paraffin sections of anthers confirmed that OE-T1243 plants did not produce normal pollen, whereas OE-T1170 plants did. We analyzed the transcription of 15 anther development-related genes and found that transcript levels of nozzle/sporocyteless and barely any meristem 1 and 2 were markedly lower in OE-T1243 plants than those in wild type, while the transcript levels of these genes in OE-Tll70 plants were unchanged. To investigate the potential roles of TinH, we inserted the TinH sequence upstream of a minimal region （-60） of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter fused to the 5＇ end of the 13-glucuronidase （GUS） reporter gene. Analysis of the transgenic plants suggested that TinH acted as an enhancer to significantly increase GUS expression. The potential action mechanism is that the TinH intron acts as an enhancer to affect the function of the CMS-related gene T.