Meiotic abnormality in dominant genic male sterile Brassica napus

Abstract

Rs1046AB is a dominant genic male sterile (DGMS) Brassica napus line derived from Yi-3A. Until now the molecular mechanism of its male sterility is still unknown. In this paper, cytological observations demonstrated that all cells in sterile plants contained condensed nuclei at the beginning stage of meiosis; this implied that meiotic cells were degenerating. Although 31% (93/300) cells escaped from the state of nuclei condensation in buds about 3 mm in length (in such length, normal plants are at tetrade stage), no cells could pass the pachytene stage. Then pachytene or zygotene like chromatin/chromosomes sometimes congregated into two or more groups with different size, which resulted in the formation of micronuclei. Nucleoplasmic bridge could also be found in some meiotic cells. Even when the "microspore's analogue" appeared in sterile buds about 4 mm in length (in such length, mature pollens could be detected in normal buds), the nuclei condensation and escaped cells with pachytene like chromosome still could be found in the sterile anthers. So it could be concluded that male sterility was caused by meiotic abnormality. According to our previous research, four genes related to cell cycle/DNA processing were identified in fertile plants. RT-PCR further confirmed that three DNA repair genes were partially or completely repressed in the sterile plants, and were only expressed in the early stage fertile flower buds, i.e. the buds <3 mm in length. Therefore, DGMS of rapeseed was probably caused by the abnormality in DNA damage repair system during meiosis. According to these results, some possible mechanisms of fertility control were discussed.