CitRWP May not be the Major or Only Major Gene that Regulates Apomixis in Citrus and Its Close Related Genus
Abstract Background: Nucellar embryony in citrus and its close related genus is a kind of apomixis, it interferes the cross breeding and affects the genetic evolution and taxonomy in citrus. Many hypotheses have been suggested on regulation of apomixes in citrus but none of them are able to lock the true regulatory sequence until the recently reported candidate gene citRWP. However, the support evidences for the judgment of citRWP as the major or only major gene are still not very sound.Results: Firstly, M/P (Monoembryonic / Polyembryonic) marker, which was designed according to the upper stream sequence of citRWP, was used to check whether the marker exhibiting consistent segregation in different embryonic genotypes. The result showed that all sweet orange selections either monoembryonic or polyembryonic contained the P-marker, but no P-marker was detected in polyembryonic Poncirus, and a new band pattern was dectected in 9 polyembryonic progenies of W-Murcott × Flying dragon trifoliate orange. Subsequently, CitRWP expressions were analyzed with RT-PCR and Realtime RT-PCR. RT-PCR revealed that CitRWP expressed in ovule of all varieties. Realtime RT-PCR results in ovule were consistent with RT-PCR. The expression value of monoembryonic pummelo was the lowest, and there was no significant difference between polyembroynic and monoembryonic sweet orange cultivars. In the hybrid offsprings, the expression of the CitRWP gene showed an extreme two-stage differentiation. The expression in young leaf and ovule of polyembryonic and monoembryonic sweet orange cultivars were different, with a higher expression level in young leaf and a lower expression level in ovule of polyembryonic cultivars. Finally, the cDNA sequences of CitRWP from ovules were cloned and sequenced. Results revealed that the CitRWP has great variations in Poncirus, which included SNPs in start-codon and/or stop-codon as well as fragment insertion/deletion causing incorrect translation. The monoembryonic/polyembryonic sweet orange cultivars and pummelo varieties had similar variations also.Conclusion: CitRWP were not consistently distributed and expressed in different embryonic genotypes. It may not be the major or only major gene that regulates apomixis in citrus and its close related genus.