The Papaver rhoeas S determinants confer self-incompatibility to Arabidopsis thaliana in planta

Abstract

Self-incompatibility (SI) is a major genetically controlled system used to prevent inbreeding in higher plants. S determinants regulate allele-specific rejection of "self" pollen by the pistil. SI is an important model system for cell-to-cell recognition and signaling and could be potentially useful for first-generation (F1) hybrid breeding. To date, the transfer of S determinants has used the complementation of orthologs to "restore" SI in close relatives. We expressed the Papaver rhoeas S determinants PrsS and PrpS in Arabidopsis thaliana. This enabled pistils to reject pollen expressing cognate PrpS. Moreover, plants coexpressing cognate PrpS and PrsS exhibit robust SI. This demonstrates that PrsS and PrpS are sufficient for a functional synthetic S locus in vivo. This transfer of novel S determinants into a highly divergent species (>140 million years apart) with no orthologs suggests their potential utility in crop production.

Pollen-Pistil Interactions and Their Role in Mate Selection

“…This hypothesis was tested recently by transferring the P. rhoeas SI system to Arabidopsis. Lin et al (2015) showed that expressing Prs-S 1 in Arabidopsis papillar cells and Prp-S 1 in pollen (i.e. an incompatible Prs-S/Prp-S pair) results in SI (Lin et al, 2015).…”

“…Lin et al (2015) showed that expressing Prs-S 1 in Arabidopsis papillar cells and Prp-S 1 in pollen (i.e. an incompatible Prs-S/Prp-S pair) results in SI (Lin et al, 2015). Given the phylogenetic distance between P. rhoeas and Arabidopsis, this exciting result suggests that the Papaver SI system may be used to manipulate compatibility in virtually any species, which has long been a goal of plant biotechnologists (see Advances).…”

Self-(In)compatibility Systems: Target Traits for Crop-Production, Plant Breeding, and Biotechnology

“…Unlike the S-RNase-based systems and the Brassica SSI system, the Papaver S-specificity determinants (PrpS and PrsS) are sufficient for SI function. Lin et al (2015) reported a proof-of-principle experiment in which PrpS and PrsS genes from P. rhoeas were transferred to A. thaliana ( Figure 2C).…”

“…The identity of the S-determinants and the physiological SI mechanism are briefly described in Molecular Mechanisms of SI and elsewhere (Wilkins et al, 2014). The dramatic demonstration that appropriate expression of PrsS and PrpS can confer SI on otherwise SC A. thaliana (De Graaf et al, 2012;Lin et al, 2015) formed the basis for the patent titled "Engineering of plants to exhibit self-incompatibility" by Franklin-Tong et al (2010). This was not the first successful transfer of SI genes into A. thaliana, as Nasrallah et al (2002) restored SI in A. thaliana by introducing SI genes from A. lyrata.…”

Plant Reproduction: Self-Incompatibility to Go

“…Since SI is a natural outcrossing system, it may be an attractive alternative, but until now a portable SI system seemed out of reach. Now, in a recent paper in Science, Lin et al report successfully transferring the Papaver rhoeas SI system into the distantly related and SC Arabidopsis thaliana, suggesting that this type of SI may work in a wide variety of species [3].…”