State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
State Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Biology, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
Nature. 2024 Oct;634(8032):220-227. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07885-0. Epub 2024 Aug 28.
Fertilization introduces parental genetic information into the zygote to guide embryogenesis. Parental contributions to postfertilization development have been discussed for decades, and the data available show that both parents contribute to the zygotic transcriptome, suggesting a paternal role in early embryogenesis. However, because the specific paternal effects on postfertilization development and the molecular pathways underpinning these effects remain poorly understood, paternal contribution to early embryogenesis and plant development has not yet been adequately demonstrated. Here our research shows that TREE1 and its homologue DAZ3 are expressed exclusively in Arabidopsis sperm. Despite presenting no evident defects in sperm development and fertilization, tree1 daz3 unexpectedly led to aberrant differentiation of the embryo root stem cell niche. This defect persisted in seedlings and disrupted root tip regeneration, comparable to congenital defects in animals. TREE1 and DAZ3 function by suppression of maternal RKD2 transcription, thus mitigating the detrimental maternal effects from RKD2 on root stem cell niche. Therefore, our findings illuminate how genetic deficiencies in sperm can exert enduring paternal effects on specific plant organ differentiation and how parental-of-origin genes interact to ensure normal embryogenesis. This work also provides a new concept of how gamete quality or genetic deficiency can affect specific plant organ formation.
受精将父母的遗传信息引入受精卵，指导胚胎发生。几十年来，人们一直在讨论父母对受精后发育的贡献，现有数据表明，父母双方都为受精卵转录组做出了贡献，这表明父亲在早期胚胎发生中有一定作用。然而，由于具体的父本对受精后发育的影响以及支持这些影响的分子途径仍知之甚少，因此，父本对早期胚胎发生和植物发育的贡献尚未得到充分证明。在这里，我们的研究表明，TREE1 和其同源物 DAZ3 仅在拟南芥精子中表达。尽管在精子发育和受精过程中没有明显缺陷，但 tree1 daz3 出人意料地导致胚胎根干细胞龛的异常分化。该缺陷在幼苗中持续存在，并破坏根尖再生，与动物的先天性缺陷相当。TREE1 和 DAZ3 通过抑制母体 RKD2 的转录来发挥作用，从而减轻 RKD2 对根干细胞龛的不利母体效应。因此，我们的研究结果阐明了精子中的遗传缺陷如何对特定植物器官的分化产生持久的父本效应，以及亲本来源的基因如何相互作用以确保正常的胚胎发生。这项工作还提供了一个新概念，即配子质量或遗传缺陷如何影响特定植物器官的形成。
