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Plant and Cell Physiology Advance Access published online on December 6, 2007
Plant and Cell Physiology, doi:10.1093/pcp/pcm170
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The Model Plant Medicago truncatula Exhibits Biparental Plastid Inheritance

Ryo Matsushima1, Yingchun Hu2, Kazuhiro Toyoda3, Sodmergen2 and Wataru Sakamoto1

1Research Institute for Bioresources, Okayama University, Kurashiki 710-0046, Japan,
2College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
3The Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, Tsushima-naka 1-1-1, Okayama 700-8530, Japan,

Corresponding author: Prof. Wataru Sakamoto, Research Institute for Bioresources, Okayama University, 2-20-1 Chuo, Kurashiki, 710-0046, Japan, E-mail saka{at}rib.okayama-u.ac.jp, fax 81-86-434-1206


  Abstract

The plastid, which originated from the endosymbiosis of cyanobacterium, contains its own plastid DNA (ptDNA) that exhibits a unique mode of inheritance. Approximately 80% of angiosperms show maternal inheritance, whereas, the remainder exhibit biparental inheritance of ptDNA. Here we studied ptDNA inheritance in the model legume, Medicago truncatula. Cytological analysis of mature pollen with DNA-specific fluorescent dyes suggested that M. truncatula is one of the few model plants potentially showing biparental inheritance of ptDNA. We further examined pollen by electron microscopy and revealed that the generative cell (a mother of sperm cells) indeed has many DNA-containing plastids. To confirm biparental inheritance genetically, we crossed two ecotypes (Jemalong A17 and A20) and the transmission mode of ptDNA was investigated by a PCR-assisted polymorphism. Consistent with the cytological observations, the majority of F1 plants possessed ptDNAs from both parents. Interestingly, cotyledons of F1 plants tended to retain a biparental ptDNA population, while later emergent leaves tended to be uniparental with either one of the parental plastid genotypes. Biparental transmission was obvious in F2 population, in which all plants showed homoplasmy with either paternal and maternal plastid genotype. Collectively, these data demonstrated that M. truncatula is biparental for ptDNA transmission and thus can be an excellent model to study plastid genetics in angiosperms.

Keywords: biparental inheritance - Medicago truncatula - model plant - plastid - pollen grain

(Received November 9, 2007; Accepted December 3, 2007)
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