Fertility restorer locus Rf1 of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) encodes a pentatricopeptide repeat protein not present in the colinear region of rice chromosome 12

R. R. Klein, P. E. Klein, J. E. Mullet, P. Minx, W. L. Rooney, K. F. Schertz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

166 Scopus citations

Abstract

With an aim to clone the sorghum fertility restorer gene Rf1, a high-resolution genetic and physical map of the locus was constructed. The Rf1 locus was resolved to a 32-kb region spanning four open reading frames: a plasma membrane Ca2+-ATPase, a cyclin D-1, an unknown protein, and a pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR13) gene family member. An ~19-kb region spanning the cyclin D-1 and unknown protein genes was completely conserved between sterile and fertile plants as was the sequence spanning the coding region of the Ca2+-ATPase. In contrast, 19 sequence polymorphisms were located in an ~7-kb region spanning PPR13, and all markers cosegregated with the fertility restoration phenotype. PPR13 was predicted to encode a mitochondrial-targeted protein containing a single exon with 14 PPR repeats, and the protein is classified as an E-type PPR subfamily member. To permit sequence-based comparison of the sorghum and rice genomes in the Rf1 region, 0.53 Mb of sorghum chromosome 8 was sequenced and compared to the colinear region of rice chromosome 12. Genome comparison revealed a mosaic pattern of colinearity with an ∼275-kb gene-poor region with little gene conservation and an adjacent, ∼245-kb gene-rice region that is more highly conserved between rice and sorghum. Despite being located in a region of high gene conservation, sorghum PPR13 was not located in a colinear position on rice chromosome 12. The present results suggest that sorghum PPR13 represents a potential candidate for the sorghum Rf1 gene, and its presence in the sorghum genome indicates a single gene transposition event subsequent to the divergence of rice and sorghum ancestors.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)994-1012
Number of pages19
JournalTheoretical And Applied Genetics
Volume111
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2005
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Fertility restorer
  • Map-based cloning
  • Microsynteny
  • Pentatricopeptide repeat protein
  • Sorghum

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Fertility restorer locus Rf1 of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) encodes a pentatricopeptide repeat protein not present in the colinear region of rice chromosome 12'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this