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Conference abstract2002

TRANSCRIPT PROFILING OF FLOWER DEVELOPMENT IN ALLOPLASMIC CMS LINES OF BRASSICA NAPUS WITH REARRANGED ARABIDOPSIS THALIANA MITOCHONDRIA

Carlsson, Jenny; Leino, Matti; Lagercrantz, Ulf; Wellmer, Frank; Meyerowitz, Elliot M; Glimelius, Kristina

Abstract

Floral organ development is besides nuclear control also influenced by nuclear-mitochondrial interactions. This is demonstrated by cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS), which is manifested as an abnormal development of stamens and inhibited pollen production. In addition to the inhibited pollen production, homeotic-like conversions of the anthers into carpel-like structures with ovules and stigmas are often observed. Nuclear restorer genes (Rf) can restore the aberrations, confirming the interaction of nuclear and mitochondrial genes. CMS lines derived from B. napus (+) A. thaliana somatic hybrids, which have been produced in our laboratory, display the aberrations described above. Molecular RFLP analysis has shown that the nuclear genome is from B. napus, while mitochondria contained rearranged DNA from both A. thaliana and B. napus with frequent rearrangements. The CMS-trait and floral organ aberrations are stably inherited in the lines that have been recurrently backcrossed for at least eight generations with pollen from B. napus. These lines constitute the experimental material that is investigated and compared to fertile lines of B. napus with microarray transcript profiling. In order to detect expression patterns that are unique for the morphological aberrations and the CMS trait the plant material is cultivated under controlled conditions and followed in detail regarding differentiation and development. RNA is isolated at different time points during development from different CMS lines and B. napus. The RNA is labelled and hybridised in various combinations to an A. thaliana cDNA microarray composed of florally expressed transcripts. Results indicate that several genes are down regulated in the CMS-line compared to B. napus. Interestingly a few genes are strongly up regulated

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Conference

1st Plant Genomics European Meetings, Berlin