Expression of the Mitochondrial Locus Associated with Cytoplasmic Male Sterility in Petunia

The main goal of the proposed research was to continue the mutual investigations into the molecular basis of CMS and male fertility restoration [MRF], with the ultimate goal of understanding these phenomena in higher plants. The experiments focused on: (1) dissecting apart the complex CMS - specific mitochondrial S-Pcf locus, in order to distinguish its essential parts which cause sterility from other parts and study its molecular evolution. (2) Studying the expression of the various regions of the S-Pcf locus in fertile and sterile lines and comparing the structure and ultrastructure of sterile and fertile tissues. (3) Determine whether alteration in respiration is genetically associated with CMS. Our mutual investigations further substantiated the association between the S-Pcf locus and CMS by the findings that the fertile phenotype of a population of unstable petunia somatic hybrids which contain the S-Pcf locus, is due to the presence of multiple muclear fertility restoration genes in this group of progenies. The information obtained by our studies indicate that homologous recombination played a major role in the molecular evolution of the S-Pcf locus and the CMS trait and in the generation of mitochondrial mutations in general. Our data suggest that the CMS cytoplasm evolved by introduction of a urs-s containing sublimon into the main mitochondrial genome via homologous recombination. We have also found that the first mutation detected so far in S-Pcf is a consequence of a homologous recombination mechanism involving part of the cox2 coding sequence. In all the cases studied by us, at the molecular level, we found that fusion of two different cells caused mitochondrial DNA recombination followed by sorting out of a specific mtDNA population or sequences. This sequence of events suggested as a mechanism for the generation of novel mitochondrial genomes and the creation of new traits. The present research also provides data concerning the expression of the recombined and complex CMS-specific S-Pcf locus as compared with the expression of additional mitochondrial proteins as well as comparative histological and ultrastructural studies of CMS and fertile Petunia. Evidence is provided for differential localization of mitochondrially encoded proteins in situ at the tissue level. The similar localization patterns of Pcf and atpA may indicate that Pcf product could interfere with the functioning of the mitochondrial ATPase in a tissue undergoing meiosis and microsporogenesis. Studies of respiration in CMS and fertile Petunia lines indicate that they differe in the partitioning of electron transport through the cytochrome oxidase and alternative oxidase pathways. The data indicate that the electron flux through the two oxidase pathways differs between mitochondria from fertile and sterile Petunia lines at certain redox states of the ubiquinone pool. In summary, extensive data concerning the CMS-specific S-Pcf locus of Petunia at the DNA and protein levels as well as information concerning different biochemical activity in CMS as compared to male fertile lines have been accumulated during the three years of this project. In addition, the involvement of the homologous recombination mechanism in the evolution of mt encoded traits is emphasized.