Webinar: Deciphering the genetic basis of cytoplasmic male sterility and fertility restoration in wheat

Outline

Hybrid crops grow faster, produce more than conventional varieties and show more stable yield under varying conditions. The potential of hybrid breeding in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) was recognised by plant breeders since the 19th century but has been under-exploited because of the difficulties in producing hybrid seed on an industrial scale. The major limiting factor is the absence of an efficient way to control self-pollination. One promising system involves the Rf1 and Rf3 genes that restore fertility of wheat plants carrying Triticum timopheevii-type cytoplasmic male sterility (T-CMS).
In the webinar I will describe the genomics and molecular approaches that we applied to clone the sequences of Rf1 and Rf3 restorer genes as well as how we determined the genetic cause of CMS in wheat plants carrying T-CMS to be the mitochondrial gene orf279 and not the previously believed candidate orf256. Regarding the molecular mechanism underlying fertility restoration, I will show how the restorer proteins induce cleavage of the orf279 transcript and by doing so supress the expression of the ORF279 protein in wheat mitochondria. Moreover, in my talk I will demonstrate how the availability of the high-quality IWGSC reference genome sequence of wheat has significantly advanced our studies.

Presenter

Joanna Melonek, Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, School of Molecular Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Australia

Reference

Melonek, J., Duarte, J., Martin, J. et al. The genetic basis of cytoplasmic male sterility and fertility restoration in wheat. Nat Commun 12, 1036 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21225-0

Recording