Point Mutations in Centromeric Histone Induce Post-zygotic Incompatibility and Uniparental Inheritance

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1005494
• Publication Date: 2015-09-09T20:09:24Z
• Authors: Sundaram Kuppu; Ek Han Tan; Hanh Nguyen; Andrea Rodgers; Luca Comai; Simon W. L. Chan; Anne B. Britt
• Keywords: Ovule; 0301 basic medicine; 2. Zero hunger; 570; 0303 health sciences; Human Genome; Centromere; Arabidopsis; Plant; QH426-470; Haploidy; Genes, Plant; Histones; 03 medical and health sciences; Genes; Amino Acid Substitution; Genetics; Point Mutation; Pollen; Codon; Developmental Biology; Research Article

The centromeric histone 3 variant (CENH3, aka CENP-A) is essential for the segregation of sister chromatids during mitosis and meiosis. To better define CENH3 functional constraints, we complemented a null allele in Arabidopsis with variety mutant alleles, each inducing single amino acid change conserved residues fold domain. Many these transgenic missense lines displayed wild-type growth fertility on self-pollination, but exhibited frequent post-zygotic death uniparental inheritance when crossed plants. failure centromeres marked by mutation domain reproduces genome elimination syndromes described chimeric from diverged species. Additionally, evidence that point sufficient to generate haploid inducer provide simple one-step method identification non-transgenic inducers existing mutagenized collections crop As proof extreme simplicity this approach create haploid-inducing lines, performed an silico search previously identified mutations line carrying A86V substitution within This A87V line, while fully fertile produced postzygotic haploids wild type.