ABSTRACT
Carpel suppression is a trigger for sexual dimorphism in the dioecious plant Silene latifolia. To clarify what kind of genes are involved in carpel suppression in this species, we generated a bisexual mutant, R025, by C-ion beam irradiation. R025 produces bisexual flowers with a mature gynoecium and mature stamens. Genetic analysis of R025 attributed the bisexual trait to mutations on the Y chromosome. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis of early floral development revealed that the carpel size of R025 was different from that of wild-type males in spite of the male background in R025. We also identified an S. latifolia CLAVATA1-like gene (SlCLV1) as a candidate of the CLAVATA-WUSCHEL (CLV-WUS) pathway. Two separate pathways, the CLV-WUS pathway and the CUP-SHAPED COTYLEDON (CUC)-SHOOT MERISTEMLESS (STM) pathway, contribute to carpel development in the Arabidopsis floral meristem. SlSTM1 and SlSTM2 (orthologs of STM) and SlCUC (an ortholog of CUC1 and CUC2) have already been identified in S. latifolia. We therefore examined the expression patterns of SlCLV1, SlSTM (SlSTM1 and SlSTM2) and SlCUC in young flowers of R025 and wild-type males and females. The expression patterns of the three genes in the two pathways differ between the wild-type male and the bisexual mutant, and the differences in expression patterns of the three genes occur at the same stage. These results suggest that in addition to SlSTM1, SlSTM2 and SlCUC, SlCLV1 is also involved in carpel suppression in S. latifolia. They also suggest that a gynoecium-suppressing factor (GSF), which is lost in the R025 Y chromosome, acts on an upstream gene that is common to the two pathways, triggering sexual dimorphism in S. latifolia.
Subject(s)
Flowers/growth & development , Plant Proteins/metabolism , Silene/genetics , Amino Acid Sequence , Arabidopsis Proteins/metabolism , Cloning, Molecular , Gene Expression Profiling , Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental , Gene Expression Regulation, Plant , Genes, Plant , Homeodomain Proteins/metabolism , Meristem/genetics , Meristem/growth & development , Molecular Sequence Data , Mutation , Plant Proteins/genetics , Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases , RNA, Plant/genetics , Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases/metabolism , Sequence Alignment , Silene/growth & development , Silene/metabolismABSTRACT
The genes SlSTM1 and SlSTM2 (orthologs of Arabidopsis SHOOT MERISTEMLESS) and SlCUC (an ortholog of CUP-SHAPED COTYLEDON1 and CUC2) of the dioecious species Silene latifolia have been proposed to control the gynoecium suppression pathway in developing flowers. In a mutant of S. latifolia (K034) that produces no males but only asexual and imperfect female (female-like) flowers, both on the same individual, gynoecia are completely suppressed in asexual flowers and partially suppressed in female-like flowers. To determine whether these two epigenetic phenotypes in gynoecium development are caused by changes in SlSTM and SlCUC expression, we performed in situ hybridization with probes of SlSTM and SlCUC. We found two different pattern of gene expression in flower buds prior to the onset of phenotypic differentiation, which were similar to the reciprocal expression of the two genes described in male and female wild-type plants. In young K034 flower buds, 14.3% of developing structures showed female and the rest male determination. This ratio corresponds to the ratio of female-like to asexual flowers eventually produced by the K034 plants. The same ratio (7-16%) was not only found in the original mutants but also in the first and second backcross generations and in vegetative clones of the original mutant line. Hence, the switch-like and reciprocal SlSTM and SlCUC expression patterns in K034 correspond to the gynoecium suppression patterns in the wild type, suggesting that the mutation(s) responsible for the two mutant genotypes acts upstream of SlSTM and SlCUC.
