An asexual flower of Silene latifolia and Microbotryum lychnidis-dioicae promotes sex-organ development

PLoS One. 2019 Aug 16;14(8):e0217329. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0217329. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Silene latifolia is a dioecious flowering plant with sex chromosomes in the family Caryophyllaceae. Development of a gynoecium and stamens are suppressed in the male and female flowers of S. latifolia, respectively. Microbotryum lychnidis-dioicae promotes stamen development when it infects the female flower. If suppression of the stamen and gynoecium development is regulated by the same mechanism, suppression of gynoecium and stamen development is released simultaneously with the infection by M. lychnidis-dioicae. To assess this hypothesis, an asexual mutant without a gynoecium or stamen was infected with M. lychnidis-dioicae. A filament of the stamen in the infected asexual mutant was elongated at stages 11 and 12 of flower bud development as well as in the male, but the gynoecium did not form. Instead of the gynoecium, a filamentous structure was suppressed as in the male flower. Developmental suppression of the stamen was released by M. lychnidis-dioicae, but that of gynoecium development was not released. M. lychnidis-dioicae would have a function similar to stamen-promoting factor (SPF), since the elongation of the stamen that is not observed in the healthy asexual mutant was observed after stage 8 of flower bud development. An infection experiment also revealed that a deletion on the Y chromosome of the asexual mutant eliminated genes for maturation of tapetal cells because the tapetal cells did not mature in the asexual mutant infected with M. lychnidis-dioicae.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Basidiomycota / pathogenicity*
  • Basidiomycota / physiology
  • Chromosome Deletion
  • Crosses, Genetic
  • Flowers / growth & development
  • Flowers / microbiology*
  • Flowers / physiology
  • Genes, Plant
  • Host Microbial Interactions / genetics
  • Host Microbial Interactions / physiology
  • Microscopy, Electron, Scanning
  • Mutation
  • Plant Diseases / genetics
  • Plant Diseases / microbiology
  • Reproduction / genetics
  • Reproduction / physiology
  • Reproduction, Asexual / genetics
  • Reproduction, Asexual / physiology
  • Silene / genetics
  • Silene / microbiology*
  • Silene / physiology

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Exploratory Research (to SK 24657046) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. In addition, this work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for the promotion of science from RIKEN. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.