The dioecious white campion Silene latifolia (syn. Melandrium album) has heteromorphic sex chromosomes, XX in females and XY in males, that are larger than the autosomes and enable their separation by flow sorting. The group of MROS genes, the first male-specifically expressed genes in dioecious plants, was recently identified in S. latifolia. To localize the MROS genes, we used the flow-sorted X chromosomes and autosomes as a template for PCR with internal primers. Our results indicate that the MROS3 gene is located in at least two copies tandemly arranged on the X chromosome with additional copy(ies) on the autosome(s), while MROS1, MROS2, and MROS4 are exclusively autosomal. The specificity of PCR products was checked by digestion with a restriction enzyme or reamplification using nested primers. Homology search of databases has shown the presence of five MROS3 homologues in A. thaliana, four of them arranged in two tandems, each consisting of two copies. We conclude that MROS3 is a low-copy gene family, connected with the proper pollen development, which is present not only in dioecious but also in other dicot plant species.

Institute of Biophysics Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic CZ 612 65 Brno Czech Republic

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Cytometry. 2000 Oct 1;41(2):102-8 PubMed

Methods Cell Biol. 2001;64:3-31 PubMed

Mol Biol Evol. 1987 Jul;4(4):406-25 PubMed

Plant J. 1993 Jun;3(6):883-6 PubMed

Chromosome Res. 1993 Jul;1(2):107-15 PubMed

Cytometry. 1995 Dec 1;21(4):363-73 PubMed

Nature. 1998 May 21;393(6682):263-6 PubMed

Chromosome Res. 1997 Feb;5(1):57-65 PubMed

Plant Cell Physiol. 1997 Apr;38(4):499-502 PubMed

Plant Physiol. 1997 Jul;114(3):969-79 PubMed

Plant J. 1997 Oct;12(4):805-17 PubMed

Plant Mol Biol. 1997 Dec;35(6):1009-14 PubMed

Plant J. 1996 Oct;10(4):679-89 PubMed

Chromosomes in the flow to simplify genome analysis

Integration of genetic and physical maps of the chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genome using flow-sorted chromosomes

Structure and evolution of Apetala3, a sex-linked gene in Silene latifolia

MK17, a specific marker closely linked to the gynoecium suppression region on the Y chromosome in Silene latifolia

Chromosome sorting in tetraploid wheat and its potential for genome analysis

Flow cytogenetics and plant genome mapping

Development of flow cytogenetics and physical genome mapping in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)