Nuclear gene induced plastid alterations in Pennisetum americanum

Abstract

A nonlethal stripe mutant (700430) of Pennisetum americanum was crossed reciprocally with other normal inbred lines to establish its inheritance pattern. A recessive nuclear gene, when homozygous, led to defective plastid development with variable penetrance and expressivity. Intraplant and interspikelet crosses revealed maternal plastid transmission. When stripe plants were crossed with pollen from normal inbreds, green and yellow progeny were obtained; selfing stripe plants or crossing with its green sib produced yellow, stripe, and green progeny. These results suggest that in egg cells with exclusively defective plastids, the plastids do not revert back inspite of acquiring a dominant allele from the pollen parent, while in egg cells with a mixture of green and yellow plastids, the yellow plastids could develop into functional plastids under the influence of a dominant allele.