Journal
DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY
Volume 308, Issue 2, Pages 462-473Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2007.06.004
Keywords
Rmr6; epigenetics; sex determination; Sk1; leaf polarity; paramutation; Zea mays
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In maize (Zea mays ssp. mays), the inciotically heritable maintenance of specific transcriptionally repressed epigenetic states is facilitated by a putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase encoded by mediator of parannitation I (mopl) and an unknown factor encoded by the required to maintain repression6 (rmr6) locus. These so-called parainutant states occur at certain alleles of loci encoding regulators of anthocyanin pigment biosynthesis. Here we show Rmr6 acts to canalize leaf and inflorescence development by prohibiting the ectopic action of key developmental regulators. Phenotypic and genetic analyses suggest that Rmr6 ensures proper adaxial-abaxial polarity of the leaf sheath by limiting the expression domain of a putative adaxializing factor. Similar tests indicate that Rmr6 maintains maize's monoecious pattern of sex determination by restricting the function of the pistil -protecting factor, silk-less1, from the apical inflorescence. Phenotypic similarities with mopl mutant plants together with current models of heterochromatin maintenance and leaf polarity imply Rmr6 functions to maintain epigenetic repression established by non-coding small RNA molecules. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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