Chloroplast Engineering of Cytoplasmic Male Sterility

Through plastid genome engineering, we have achieved agronomic transformation of many important crops, such as herbicide resistance, drought tolerance, salt tolerance, insect resistance, pathogen resistance, nitrogen fixation, nutrition, and cytoplasmic male sterility. Here, Lifeasible is committed to providing reliable and economical chloroplast genetic engineering solutions for crops to produce hybrid seeds utilizing cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS).

Introduction

Improving the genetic performance of crops is critical to increasing crop productivity. With limited arable land, increases in crop productivity must come from increased yields brought about by innovations in plant breeding. Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) is a maternally inherited phenomenon found in higher plants that causes pollen abortion without affecting female fertility and vegetative growth. In addition, CMS controls pollination during hybrid seed production. CMS is of great interest as a means of containing genetically modified plants in crop species. At present, CMS inbred lines have been widely used in hybrid production of various crops, and the improvement of hybrid crop productivity will contribute to global feed and food security.

Fig. 1. Male sterility systems in wheat and opportunities for hybrid wheat development. (Singh S P, et al., 2015)

Our Solutions

Our solution for genetically engineered CMS through the chloroplast genome can be used to safely integrate foreign genes through the nuclear genome, and in rare cases where the plastid genome is transmitted by paternal or biparental lines. Our engineers used advanced techniques such as DD-PCR to identify several chloroplast genes in plants that affect plant fertility, including TaAPT2 gene, matK gene, rpoC2 gene, ms2 mutant, etc. We have successfully used engineered cytoplasmic male sterility to produce hybrids in many crops including maize, rice and sorghum. The strategy is as follows:

(1) Construction of chloroplast transformation vector.
(2) The transgene is integrated into the chloroplast genome.
(3) Northern blot analysis of transcript abundance and stability in chloroplast transgenic lines.
(4) Western blot analysis confirmed gene expression in chloroplast transgenic lines.
(5) Signs of male sterility.
(6) Gene expression in anthers.
(7) Analysis of anther development and male sterility.

Attractive Advantages of Our Solutions

• We take full advantage of heterosis to improve the performance of hybrid offspring by combining complementary genetic material from their inbred parents.
• CMS transgenic plants exhibit increased size, growth rate and yield, as well as improved resistance and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses.
• We have used CMS extensively for hybrid production of many crops.
• A variety of advanced technical support.

Lifeasible's goal is to provide customers around the world with fully customized chloroplast engineered solutions of cytoplasmic male sterility. It should be pointed out that we only provide solutions for genetically engineering cytoplasmic male sterility via the chloroplast genome, not directly producing crops. Please contact us to discuss further details to ensure your next success.

References

1. Singh S P, Srivastava R, Kumar J. (2015) Male sterility systems in wheat and opportunities for hybrid wheat development[J]. Acta Physiologiae Plantarum. 37(1): 1-13.
2. Ruiz ON, Daniell H. (2005) Engineering cytoplasmic male sterility via the chloroplast genome by expression of {beta}-ketothiolase. Plant Physiol. 138(3):1232-1246.