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Plant and Cell Physiology Advance Access originally published online on February 18, 2009
Plant and Cell Physiology 2009 50(4):828-837; doi:10.1093/pcp/pcp026
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following Plant and Cell Physiology issue: Special Issue Articles: Photosynthesis [View the issue table of contents]

Cytoplasmic Male Sterility-Related Protein Kinase, OsNek3, is Regulated Downstream of Mitochondrial Protein Phosphatase 2C, DCW11

Sota Fujii, Mari Yamada and Kinya Toriyama*

Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, 1-1 Tsutumidori-Amamiyamachi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 981-8555 Japan

*Corresponding author: E-mail, torikin{at}bios.tohoku.ac.jp; Fax, +81-22-717-8834.


  Abstract

OsNek3 (Oryza sativa L. NIMA-related kinase) and DCW11 encoding a mitochondrial putative protein phosphatase 2C were found in our previous microarray study as down-regulated genes in the rice CW-CMS line, which lacked pollen germination ability. Further analysis of DCW11 revealed that DCW11 is strongly correlated with CW-CMS occurrence. Here we show the relationship between OsNek3 and DCW11. OsNek3 was preferentially expressed in mature pollen. A knockout mutant with Tos17 inserted into OsNek3 did not show any pollen-defective phenotype. On the other hand, plants overexpressing OsNek3 occasionally produced a peculiar pollen structure in which the outer cell wall of four pollen grains fused together even at the mature pollen stages, which resembled that of quartet mutants in Arabidopsis. OsNek3 was shown to interact with a LIM domain-containing protein, OsPLIM2b, whose expression was strongly specific in mature pollen, suggesting that OsNek3 might play a role in pollen germination. OsNek3 was shown to be down-regulated in DCW11-knockdown lines, whereas osnek3 mutation did not result in DCW11 down-regulation. These results suggest that OsNek3 is downstream of DCW11 in retrograde signaling from the mitochondria to the nucleus and is involved in CW-CMS.

Keywords: Cytoplasmic male sterility - Mitochondrial retrograde signaling - NIMA-related kinase - Oryza sativa L - Pollen - Protein phosphatase 2C

Abbreviations: AOX, alternative oxidase; CAB, chlorophyll a/b-binding protein; CMS, cytoplasmic male sterility; DAPI, 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole; DCW, down-regulated in CW-CMS; GFP, green fluorescent protein; GUS, β-glucuronidase; mRFP, monomeric red fluorescent protein; NIMA, Never-in-mitosis A; OsNek, Oryza sativa NIMA-related protein kinase; PP2C, protein phosphatase 2C; RT–PCR, reverse transcriptase–PCR.

(Received December 23, 2008; Accepted February 9, 2009)
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Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
S. Fujii and K. Toriyama
Suppressed expression of RETROGRADE-REGULATED MALE STERILITY restores pollen fertility in cytoplasmic male sterile rice plants
PNAS, June 9, 2009; 106(23): 9513 - 9518.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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