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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Madison, Wisconsin » Vegetable Crops Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #318487
Title: Cucumber as a model plant to study mitochondrial-nuclear interactions

Author
item DEL VALLE-ECHEVARRIA, A - University Of Wisconsin
item SANSEVERINO, W - Agricultural Institute Of Spain
item GARCIA-MAS, J - Agricultural Institute Of Spain
item Havey, Michael

Submitted to: Slovenian Genetics Society Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/2/2015
Publication Date: 9/20/2015
Citation: Del Valle-Echevarria, A.R., Sanseverino, W., Garcia-Mas, J., Havey, M.J. 2015. Cucumber as a model plant to study mitochondrial-nuclear interactions [abstract]. Slovenian Genetics Society Meeting. p. 2.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The three genomes of cucumber (Cucumis sativus) show different modes of transmission: maternal for plastid, paternal for mitochondrial (mt), and biparental for nuclear DNA. When the highly inbred line ‘B’ is passed through cell cultures, paternally transmitted mosaic (MSC) phenotypes appear after regeneration. Next-generation sequencing revealed under-represented regions in mt DNAs of the independently derived MSC lines 3, 12 and 16 relative to inbred B. Quantitative PCR confirmed lower copy numbers and transcription of mt genes carried in these under-represented regions. However no consistent differences were detected for amounts of mt proteins encoded by under-represented genes, indicating that post-transcriptional events affect relative amounts of specific proteins. A unique nuclear locus, Paternal Sorting of Mitochondria (Psm), conditions the preferential sorting of wild-type mitochondria in progenies when MSC16 is used as the male parent. A pentatricopeptide repeat protein was identified as the candidate gene controlling mitochondrial sorting in cucumber. Our research supports cucumber as a model system to produce “knock-downs” of mitochondrial transcripts, and to study subsequent nuclear responses in a highly inbred background.