The RNA-dependent DNA methylation pathway is required to restrict SPOROCYTELESS/NOZZLE expression to specify a single female germ cell precursor in Arabidopsis
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2020
Authors
Mendes, M.A.
Petrella, R.
Cucinotta, M.
Vignati, E.
Gatti, S.
Pinto, S.C.
Bird, D.C.
Gregis, V.
Dickinson, H.
Tucker, M.R.
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Development (Cambridge), 2020; 147(23):dev194274.-1-dev194274.-11
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Marta A. Mendes, Rosanna Petrella, Mara Cucinotta, Edoardo Vignati, Stefano Gatti, Sara C. Pinto, Dayton C. Bird, Veronica Gregis, Hugh Dickinson, Matthew R. Tucker and Lucia Colombo
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Abstract
In higher plants, the female germline is formed from the megaspore mother cell (MMC), a single cell in the premeiotic ovule. Previously, it was reported that mutants in the RNA-dependent DNA methylation (RdDM) pathway might be involved in restricting the female germline to a single nucellus cell. We show that the DRM methyltransferase double mutant drm1drm2 also presents ectopic enlarged cells, consistent with supernumerary MMC-like cells. In wild-type ovules, MMC differentiation requires SPOROCYTELESS/NOZZLE (SPL/NZZ), as demonstrated by the spl/nzz mutant failing to develop an MMC. We address the poorly understood upstream regulation of SPL/NZZ in ovules, showing that the RdDM pathway is important to restrict SPL/NZZ expression. In ago9, rdr6 and drm1drm2 mutants, SPL/NZZ is expressed ectopically, suggesting that the multiple MMC-like cells observed might be attributable to the ectopic expression of SPL/NZZ. We show that the ovule identity gene, SEEDSTICK, directly regulates AGO9 and RDR6 expression in the ovule and therefore indirectly regulates SPL/NZZ expression. A model is presented describing the network required to restrict SPL/NZZ expression to specify a single MMC.
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© 2020. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.