Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 116, Issue 12, Pages 5665-5674Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1811661116
Keywords
biparental inheritance; selfish cytoplasmic elements; correlation mapping; acetyl-CoA carboxylase; ycf2
Categories
Funding
- Max Planck Society
- Polish National Science Centre [2015/19/B/N22/01692]
- Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology GreenTeam
Ask authors/readers for more resources
In most eukaryotes, organellar genomes are transmitted preferentially by the mother, but molecular mechanisms and evolutionary forces underlying this fundamental biological principle are far from understood. It is believed that biparental inheritance promotes competition between the cytoplasmic organelles and allows the spread of so-called selfish cytoplasmic elements. Those can be, for example, fast-replicating or aggressive chloroplasts (plastids) that are incompatible with the hybrid nuclear genome and therefore maladaptive. Here we show that the ability of plastids to compete against each other is a metabolic phenotype determined by extremely rapidly evolving genes in the plastid genome of the evening primrose Oenothera. Repeats in the regulatory region of accD (the plastid-encoded subunit of the acetyl-CoA carboxylase, which catalyzes the first and rate-limiting step of lipid biosynthesis), as well as in ycf2 (a giant reading frame of still unknown function), are responsible for the differences in competitive behavior of plastid genotypes. Polymorphisms in these genes influence lipid synthesis and most likely profiles of the plastid envelope membrane. These in turn determine plastid division and/or turnover rates and hence competitiveness. This work uncovers cytoplasmic drive loci controlling the outcome of biparental chloroplast transmission. Here, they define the mode of chloroplast inheritance, as plastid competitiveness can result in uniparental inheritance (through elimination of the weak plastid) or biparental inheritance (when two similarly strong plastids are transmitted).
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available