A natural mutation in the promoter of Ms-cd1 causes dominant male sterility in Brassica oleracea
Fengqing Han, Kaiwen Yuan, Wenru Sun, Xiaoli Zhang, Xing Liu, Xinyu Zhao, Limei Yang, Yong Wang, Jialei Ji, Yumei Liu, Zhansheng Li, Jinzhe Zhang, Chunzhi Zhang, Sanwen Huang, Yangyong Zhang, Zhiyuan Fang, Honghao Lv
Abstract
Abstract Male sterility has been used for crop hybrid breeding for a long time. It has contributed greatly to crop yield increase. However, the genetic basis of male sterility has not been fully elucidated. Here, we report map-based cloning of the cabbage ( Brassica oleracea ) dominant male-sterile gene Ms-cd1 and reveal that it encodes a PHD-finger motif transcription factor. A natural allele Ms-cd1 PΔ−597 , resulting from a 1-bp deletion in the promoter, confers dominant genic male sterility (DGMS), whereas loss-of-function ms-cd1 mutant shows recessive male sterility. We also show that the ethylene response factor BoERF1L represses the expression of Ms-cd1 by directly binding to its promoter; however, the 1-bp deletion in Ms-cd1 PΔ−597 affects the binding. Furthermore, ectopic expression of Ms-cd1 PΔ−597 confers DGMS in both dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous plant species. We thus propose that the DGMS system could be useful for breeding hybrids of multiple crop species.