A complex dominance hierarchy is controlled by polymorphism of small RNAs and their targets

Shinsuke Yasuda, Yuko Wada, Tomohiro Kakizaki, Yoshiaki Tarutani, Eiko Miura-Uno, Kohji Murase, Sota Fujii, Tomoya Hioki, Taiki Shimoda, Yoshinobu Takada, Hiroshi Shiba, Takeshi Takasaki-Yasuda, Go Suzuki, Masao Watanabe, Seiji Takayama

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    31 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    In diploid organisms, phenotypic traits are often biased by effects known as Mendelian dominant-recessive interactions between inherited alleles. Phenotypic expression of SP11 alleles, which encodes the male determinants of self-incompatibility in Brassica rapa, is governed by a complex dominance hierarchy1-3. Here, we show that a single polymorphic 24 nucleotide small RNA, named SP11 methylation inducer 2 (Smi2), controls the linear dominance hierarchy of the four SP11 alleles (S44 > S60 > S40 > S29). In all dominant-recessive interactions, small RNA variants derived from the linked region of dominant SP11 alleles exhibited high sequence similarity to the promoter regions of recessive SP11 alleles and acted in trans to epigenetically silence their expression. Together with our previous study4, we propose a new model: sequence similarity between polymorphic small RNAs and their target regulates mono-allelic gene expression, which explains the entire five-phased linear dominance hierarchy of the SP11 phenotypic expression in Brassica.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number16206
    JournalNature Plants
    Volume3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2016 Dec 22

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Plant Science

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