Fine regulation of ARF17 for anther development and pollen formation

BMC Plant Biology

Research Article

Ya-Hui Yu¹  Jia-Xin Zhang¹  Jing-Shi Xue¹  Xiao-Feng Xu¹  Si-Qi Liu¹  Xiao-Zhen Yao¹  Zhong-Nan Yang¹  Zhi-Xue Liu²  Bo Wang³ 

[1] College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Shanghai Normal University, 200234, Shanghai, China;Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, School of Life Science and Technology, Tongji University, 200092, Shanghai, China;Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, School of Life Science and Technology, Tongji University, 200092, Shanghai, China;College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Shanghai Normal University, 200234, Shanghai, China;

关键词: Anther;    Tapetum;    Male sterility;    ARF17;    5mARF17;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12870-017-1185-1

 received in 2017-07-27, accepted in 2017-11-27,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn Arabidopsis, the tapetum and microsporocytes are critical for pollen formation. Previous studies have shown that ARF17 is expressed in microsporocytes and tetrads and directly regulates tetrad wall synthesis for pollen formation. ARF17 is the direct target of miR160, and promoterARF17::5mARF17 (5mARF17/WT) transgenic plants, which have five silent mutations within the miR160-complementary domain, are sterile.ResultsHere, we found that ARF17 is also expressed in the tapetum, which was defective in arf17 mutants. Compared with arf17 mutants, 5mARF17/WT plants had abnormal tapetal cells and tetrads but were less vacuolated in the tapetum. Immunocytochemical assays showed that the ARF17 protein over-accumulated in tapetum, microsporocytes and tetrads of 5mARF17/WT plants at early anther stages, but its expression pattern was not affected during anther development. 5mARF17 driven by its native promoter did not rescue the arf17 male-sterile phenotype. The expression of 5mARF17 driven by the tapetum-specific promoter A9 led to a defective tapetum and male sterility in transgenic plants. These results suggest that the overexpression of ARF17 in the tapetum and microsporocytes of 5mARF17/WT plants leads to male sterility. Microarray data revealed that an abundance of genes involved in transcription and translation are ectopically expressed in 5mARF17/WT plants.ConclusionsOur work shows that ARF17 plays an essential role in anther development and pollen formation, and ARF17 expression under miR160 regulation is critical for its function during anther development.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2017