MSH7 confers quantitative variation in pollen fertility and boosts grain yield in maize.

ABSTRACT: Fertile pollen is critical for the survival, fitness, and dispersal of flowering plants, and directly contributes to crop productivity. Extensive mutational screening studies have been carried out to dissect the genetic regulatory network determining pollen fertility, but we still lack fundamental knowledge about whether and how pollen fertility is controlled in natural populations. We used a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to show that ZmGEN1A and ZmMSH7, two DNA repair-related genes, confer natural variation in maize pollen fertility. Mutants defective in these genes exhibited abnormalities in meiotic or post-meiotic DNA repair, leading to reduced pollen fertility. More importantly, ZmMSH7 showed evidence of selection during maize domestication, and its disruption resulted in a subs

SUBMITTER: Jiang L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11022798 | biostudies-literature | 2024 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature