Spotting the Targets of the Apospory Controller in .

Sexuality and apomixis are interconnected plant reproductive routes possibly behaving as polyphenic traits under the influence of the environment. In the subtropical grass , one of the controllers of apospory, a main component of gametophytic apomixis reproduction, is (), a multifunctional gene previously associated with RNA cleavage regulation (including mRNA splicing as well as rRNA and miRNA processing), transcriptional modulation and the establishment of heterochromatin. In particular, the downregulation of induces a sexuality decline and the emergence of aposporous-like embryo sacs. The present work was aimed at identifying target RNAs expressed during reproductive development of . First, we mined available RNA databases originated from spikelets of sexual and apomictic plants, which naturally display a contrasting representation, to identify differentially expressed mRNA splice variants and miRNAs. Then, the role of in the generation of these particular molecules was investigated in antisense sexual lines. We found that (, a component of the chloroplast light harvesting complex), (, encoding a MAP3K previously associated with apomixis) and miR2275 (a meiotic 24-nt phasi-RNAs producer) are directly or indirectly targeted by . Our results point to a coordinated control exercised by signal transduction and siRNA machineries to induce the transition from sexuality to apomixis.