Inducing male sterility of tomato using two component system

Abstract

Production of hybrid seeds and pursuing heterosis breeding of many crops have been accomplished using male sterile lines. However, not all crops have valuable male sterile lines due to instability of male sterility and absence of a restorer system. In this study, male sterile lines have been induced using a two-component system. The extracellular ribonuclease Barnase was cleaves into two inactive yet complementary fragments, designated as ‘Bn-5’ and ‘Bn-3’. Both components were controlled by a TA29 promoter. They were transferred into the tomato inbred line ‘Yellow tomato’ by Agrobacterium method. Southern blotting identified that 11 transgenic Bn-5 plants (T0) and 10 transgenic Bn-3 plants (T0) were obtained. The vegetative phenotypes of all T0 plants were similar to wild-type, and they were capable of producing viable pollen grains and normal fruit with seeds, indicating that Barnase had lost its function after it being split two partial fragments. After self-pollination, homozygous progenies (T1) of transgenic Bn-5 and Bn-3 plants were chosen to cross each other, Barnase could be reconstituted and co-expressed in the same cell, which caused the hybrid plants to produce collapsed pollen grains with no viability and thus100 % male sterile plants were obtained. Stamens of male sterile plants were shorter than those of the wild type plants. PCR detection demonstrated that all male sterile plants contained Barnase, but male fertile plants did not. The male sterile plants were crossed with the male fertile inbred lines, and the result showed that hybrid (F1) plants were capable of producing normal fruit with seeds, and their pollen grain fertility was restored. The co-segregation ratio of Bn-5 and Bn-3 fragments showed 1:1 among hybrid plants. In conclusion, the results verified that the male sterility could be generated by two component system and be used in hybrid seed production. The F1 between the male sterile plant and the inbred line showed heterotic comparing to both parents. This system needs not breed restoration line.