Seed abortion caused by the combination of two duplicate genes in the progeny from the cross between Oryza sativa and Oryza meridionalis

Abstract

Seed development is an essential phenomenon for all sexual propagative plant species. The functional allele at SEED DEVELOPMENT 1 (SDV1) or SEED DEVELOPMENT 2 (SDV2) loci is essential for seed development for Oryza sativa and Oryza meridionalis. In the present study, we performed fine mapping of SDV1, narrowing down the area of interest to 333kb on chromosome 6. Haplotype analysis around the SDV1 locus of O. meridionalis accessions indicated that they shared the DNA polymorphism, suggesting that they have a common abortive allele at the SDV1 locus. Linkage analysis of the candidate SDV2 gene showed that it was located on chromosome 4. The candidate SDV2 was confirmed using a population in which both the SDV1 and SDV2 genes were segregating. The chromosomal region covering the SDV1 gene was predicted to contain 30 protein-coding genes in O. sativa. Five of these genes have conserved DNA sequences in the chromosomal region of the SDV2 gene on chromosome 4, and not on chromosome 6, of O. meridionalis. These results suggest that these five genes could be candidates for SDV1, and that their orthologous genes located on chromosome 4 of O. meridionalis could be candidates for SDV2.