Study examines the hard reality that no pollen means no seeds

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North Carolina State University researchers have successfully transferred an important gene from one compartment of a plant cell to another to produce tobacco plants that lack pollen and viable seeds, while otherwise growing normally. Their findings could lead to better ways of producing hybrid seeds to maximize crop productivity, or to introduce seedlessness in fruit species lacking the often-desired trait, such as raspberries, blackberries or muscadine grapes.

The researchers began the work in the energy-producing portion of a cell, the mitochondria. In plants, aberrations within the mitochondrial genome can be associated with the inability to make pollen, a trait known as cytoplasmic male sterility that has been successfully exploited for the production of high-yielding hybrid seeds in many important crops. Naturally occurring CMS-based systems that are robust enough to facilitate commercial scale hybrid seed production are limited, however.

Normal tobacco seeds are dense and germinate; seeds from plants with the mitochondrial gene deletion are mostly hollow and don't germinate. Credit: Ralph Dewey, NC State University. "That's because the promoter that we chose not only failed to express during pollen formation, but also during early seed development," Dewey said.

 

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