The radish Rfo restorer gene of Ogura cytoplasmic male sterility encodes a protein with multiple pentatricopeptide repeats

• Published in: The Plant journal : for cell and molecular biology 2003-07, Vol.35 (2), p.262-272
• Main Authors: Brown, Gregory G., Formanová, Nataša, Jin, Hua, Wargachuk, Richard, Dendy, Charles, Patil, Prashant, Laforest, Martin, Zhang, Jinfa, Cheung, Wing Y., Landry, Benoit S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions; Amino Acid Sequence; Arabidopsis - genetics; Arabidopsis - physiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brassica; Brassica napus - genetics; Brassica napus - physiology; canola; Chromosome Mapping; Cloning, Molecular; comparative genomics; DNA, Plant - chemistry; DNA, Plant - genetics; Fertility - genetics; Flowers - genetics; Flowers - physiology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Genetics and breeding of economic plants; Heterosis. Floral biology applications: apomixy, male sterility, incompatibility, varia; hybrid seed production; map‐based cloning; Microsatellite Repeats - genetics; Molecular Sequence Data; nuclear‐mitochondrial interaction; Plant breeding: fundamental aspects and methodology; Plant Proteins - genetics; Plant Proteins - metabolism; Plants, Genetically Modified; Raphanus - genetics; Raphanus - physiology; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; Synteny
• ISSN: 0960-7412; 1365-313X
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-313X.2003.01799.x

Summary A single radish nuclear gene, Rfo, restores Ogura (ogu) cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) in Brassica napus. A map‐based cloning approach relying on synteny between radish and Arabidopsis was used to clone Rfo. A radish gene encoding a 687‐amino‐acid protein with a predicted mitochondrial targeting pre‐sequence was found to confer male fertility upon transformation into ogu CMS B. napus. This gene, like the recently described Petunia Rf gene, codes for a pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR)‐containing protein with multiple, in this case 16, PPR domains. Two similar genes that do not appear to function as Rfo flank this gene. Comparison of the Rfo region with the syntenic Arabidopsis region indicates that a PPR gene is not present at the Rfo‐equivalent site in Arabidopsis, although a smaller and related PPR gene is found about 40 kb from this site. The implications of these findings for the evolution of restorer genes and other PPR encoding genes are discussed.