A Kinesin-14 Motor Activates Neocentromeres to Promote Meiotic Drive in Maize

Maize abnormal chromosome 10 (Ab10) encodes a classic example of true meiotic drive that converts heterochromatic regions called knobs into motile neocentromeres that are preferentially transmitted to egg cells. Here, we identify a duster of eight genes on Ab10, called the Kinesin driver (Kindr) complex, that are required for both neocentromere motility and preferential transmission. Two meiotic drive mutants that lack neocentromere activity proved to be kindr epimutants with increased DNA methylation across the entire gene cluster. RNAi of Kindr induced a third epimutant and corresponding loss of meiotic drive. Kinesin gliding assays and immunolocalization revealed that KINDR is a functional minus-enddir ted kinesin that localizes specifically to knobs containing 180 bp repeats. Sequence comparisons suggest that Kindr diverged from a Kinesin-14A ancestor similar to 12 mya and has driven the accumulation of > 500 Mb of knob repeats and affected the segregation of thousands of genes linked to knobs on all 10 chromosomes.