title: Functional analysis of sporophytic transcripts repressed by the female gametophyte in the ovule of Arabidopsis thaliana.
abstract: To investigate the genetic and molecular regulation that the female gametophyte could exert over neighboring sporophytic regions of the ovule, we performed a quantitative comparison of global expression in wild-type and nozzle/sporocyteless (spl) ovules of Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis), using Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing (MPSS). This comparison resulted in 1517 genes showing at least 3-fold increased expression in ovules lacking a female gametophyte, including those encoding 89 transcription factors, 50 kinases, 25 proteins containing a RNA-recognition motif (RRM), and 20 WD40 repeat proteins. We confirmed that eleven of these genes are either preferentially expressed or exclusive of spl ovules lacking a female gametophyte as compared to wild-type, and showed that six are also upregulated in determinant infertile1 (dif1), a meiotic mutant affected in a REC8-like cohesin that is also devoided of female gametophytes. The sporophytic misexpression of IOREMPTE, a WD40/transducin repeat gene that is preferentially expressed in the L1 layer of spl ovules, caused the arrest of female gametogenesis after differentiation of a functional megaspore. Our results show that in Arabidopsis, the sporophytic-gametophytic cross talk includes a negative regulation of the female gametophyte over specific genes that are detrimental for its growth and development, demonstrating its potential to exert a repressive control over neighboring regions in the ovule.
authors.affiliation: Grupo de Desarrollo Reproductivo y Apomixis, Laboratorio Nacional de Genómica para la Biodiversidad y Departamento de Ingeniería Genética de Plantas, CINVESTAV Irapuato, Irapuato, Mexico.
authors.forename: Alma
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Armenta-Medina
authors.forename: Wilson
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Huanca-Mamani
authors.forename: Nidia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sanchez-León
authors.forename: Isaac
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Arévalo
authors.forename: Jean-Philippe
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Vielle-Calzada
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D056130:Gametogenesis, Plant / Q000235:genetics*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant / Q000235:genetics*; D017343:Genes, Plant / Q000235:genetics*; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D056771:Ovule / Q000235:genetics*; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers