Abstract
Maternal effects are defined by mutations that affect the next generation when they are maternally inherited. To date, most indepth studies of maternal effects in plants have attributed their origin to genomic imprinting that restricts expression to the maternal allele. The DNA glycosylase DEMETER (DME) removes methylated cytosine residues, causing transcriptional activation of the maternal allele of imprinted genes. In this study, we show that loss-of-function of the major DNA LIGASE I (AtLIG1) in Arabidopsis thaliana causes maternal effects in the endosperm, which is the seed tissue that nurtures embryo development. AtLIG1 expression is not imprinted and has a limited impact on imprinted gene expression. Genetic interaction analyses further indicate that AtLIG1 acts downstream of DME. The removal of methylated cytosine residues by DME involves the creation of DNA single-strand breaks and our results suggest that AtLIG1 repairs these breaks.
Highlights
Maternal effects have been genetically defined by mutations that affect the generation when inherited from the mother
We further investigated the parental origin of AtLIG1 expression in crosses between wild-type ovules and pollen from the AtLIG1::green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing line (Fig. 5A-C)
In order to confirm the early expression of the paternal allele of AtLIG1, we identified a polymorphism between two wild-type accessions such that we could distinguish the transcripts from each parental allele
Summary
Maternal effects have been genetically defined by mutations that affect the generation when inherited from the mother. The maternal contribution to early developmental phases is still unclear. The flowering plant life cycle alternates between the vegetative phase of the diploid sporophyte and the reproductive phase of the haploid gametophyte. The sporophyte is represented by the vegetative phase of plant life and produces flowers in which specialised cells undergo meiosis. The haploid products of meiosis develop as gametophytes, which produce the gametes. The female gametophyte (embryo sac) produces the two female gametes: the egg cell and the central cell (Drews and Yadegari, 2002). The developing embryo and the endosperm inherit maternal cytoplasm and are supplied with nutrients from the mother plant. In flowering plants, several distinct maternal contributions can arise from the sporophytic diploid tissues as well as from the haploid female gametophyte (Chaudhury and Berger, 2001)
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