A collaborative research group led by Professor Takashi Araki of the Graduate School of Life Sciences, Kyoto University has acquired a new gene (DUO1) in which sperm formation in plants occurred in algae, the ancestors of land plants, about XNUMX million years ago. Revealed that it started with.
Animals and plants reproduce sexually by two types of germ cells, sperm and eggs, but little is known about their evolutionary origin.The sperm of plants change significantly in the process of evolution, and in moss plants, they move with flagella and reach eggs in the same way as animals, but in plants that bloom (angiosperms), they lose their flagella and passively by pollen tubes. Carried to the egg.It was unclear whether such extremely different spermatogenic processes were carried out by a common mechanism.
Therefore, the research team conducted a comparative study using model plants from Kyoto University such as liverwort, Arabidopsis thaliana, Arabidopsis thaliana, three species of Chara braunii, and Closterium.As a result, it was found that the gene DUO1 plays a central role in spermatogenesis in plants, and DUOXNUMX is common in the formation of "flagellar sperm" in algae and moss plants and "immobile sperm" in angiosperms. It was clarified that the gene of.
It is expected that this result will deepen the understanding of the reproductive mechanism in plants including crops, and will serve as a basis for improving the fertility of the male side of crops and for artificial manipulation.
Paper information:[Nature Communications] Transcription factor DUO1 generated by neo-functionalization is associated with evolution of sperm differentiation in plants
