Mutations in Arabidopsis Male Meiocyte Death1 (MMD1) exhibit cytoplasmic shrinkage and chromatin fragmentation, leading to male meiocyte apoptosis. MMD1 is expressed during meiosis and encodes a Plant Homeo Domain (PHD) protein. Arabidopsis contains three other MMD1-like proteins, MS1, which is essential for tapetal cell development and MMDL1 and MMDL2, which are expressed at elevated levels in the endosperm and sperm cells, respectively. MS1 has been shown to play a role in controlling transcription during tapetal cell development, raising the possibility that MMD-like genes may also be transcriptional regulatory proteins. Plants homozygous for single mutations in MMDL1 and MMDL2 appear normal, while homozygous mutations in both genes are lethal. Interestingly, while mmdl1-/-mmdl2+/- plants are viable, but display a seed abortion phenotype, mmdl1+/-mmdl2-/- plants are not able to be isolated. Detailed cellular and molecular analyses including the generation and analysis of plants expressing RNAi constructs are underway and the results of these experiments will be presented. Likewise MMDL1- and MMDL2- promoter β-glucuronidase reporter fusions are being generated to better understand the transcriptional regulation of MMDL1 and MMDL2. The results of these experiments will also be presented.

Arabidopsis MMD-like genes and their roles in chromosome biology during male reproduction

249th National Meeting (2015)

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