Parental Genome Imbalance Causes Post-Zygotic Seed Lethality and Deregulates Imprinting in Rice.

BACKGROUND: Reproductive isolation between rice of different ploidy levels is manifested as endosperm and embryo abortion in seeds produced by interploidy crosses. Genomic imprinting is considered to be the underlying mechanism establishing the post-zygotic hybridization barrier. We characterized disrupted seed development in reciprocal crosses between a diploid Japonica rice and a tetraploid Indica rice. RESULTS: Triploid seeds from these crosses had aborted development and could not germinate in soil but could be rescued in culture medium with significantly more seeds developing to seedlings in the 4n × 2n (♀-♂) cross with excess maternal genomes than in the 2n × 4n cross with excess paternal genome. Consistent with previous findings, precocious endosperm cellularization and bigger embryos were observed in the seeds from the maternal excess cross, whereas absence of cellularization and arrested globular embryos were found in the seeds from the paternal excess cross, supporting the idea that endosperm cellularization is an important transition for embryo development. Moreover, we found that starch granules were persistently deposited in the pericarp parenchyma cells of the paternal excess cross, while pericarp starch gradually decreased and relocated to the developing endosperm in balanced and maternal excess crosses in which cellularization and starch deposition occur in endosperm, suggesting that parental genome balance influences pericarp starch relocation via cellularization and starch deposition. Loss of imprinting, or altered expression of imprinted genes and epigenetic regulators, OsFIE2 and OsMET1b were observed, implying the potential role of imprinting and epigenetic mechanisms in regulating the differential parental genome dosage effects on endosperm development. CONCLUSIONS: Our results support the hypothesis that the maternal genome dosage promotes endosperm cellularization and the paternal genome dosage delays or inhibits cellularization via contributing different sets of imprinted genes.

Genome-wide high-frequency non-Mendelian loss of heterozygosity in rice.

Classic Mendelian genetics declares that hybrids inherit genomic information from both male and female parents, and that alleles should be heterozygous in F1 plants. A few exceptions to this principle have been reported, but most of them are restricted to either a limited set of specific genes or specific types of alleles. Here, we show that a rice triploid and diploid hybridization resulted in stable diploid progenies, both in genotypes and phenotypes, through gene homozygosity. Furthermore, their gene homozygosity can be inherited through 8 generations, and they can convert DNA sequences of other rice varieties into their own. Molecular-marker examination confirmed that this type of genome-wide gene conversion occurred at a very high frequency. Possible mechanisms, including RNA-templated repair of double-strand DNA, are discussed.

[Cytological and embryological observation on the cross of autotriploid x diploid in rice].

In this report, the process of hybridization between different ploidy levels was observed in rice. Autotriploid (2n = 36) 149-B, generated naturally from the twin-seedling rice population SAR-2, was used as the female parent crossing with a normal diploid variety Shuhui 363. The processes of fertilization and embryological development were investigated. The pollen could germinate in triploid tissue of pistil normally and arrive at micropyle. But the percentage of double fertilization was only 8.89%, and the percentage of seed setting was 0.566%. The hybridization obstacles mainly occurred in the process of fertilization. Barriers of double fertilization, prolongation and abnormal development of proembryo, and even development stopping or differentiation failure of embryo and/or endosperm could result in abnormal development and abortion of zygote.