Summary
The mitochondrial gene T-urf13 is implicated in cytoplasmic male sterility and maternal inheritance of susceptibility to disease in T cytoplasm maize. The organization of the T-urf13 region is a consequence of multiple recombinational events, one of which has duplicated a 5 kb region that is 5′ to atp6. Transcription initiation and processing sites for atp6 were identified within the 5 kb region and found to serve T-urf13 and the cotranscribed gene ORF221. Differences in atp6 transcripts from N and T cytoplasms were associated with two small insertions in the T mitochondrial genome that create a unique processing site. Fertility restoration is associated with alterations of T-urf13 transcripts and a significant reduction in the gene product, a 13 kDa polypeptide. Specifically, the abundance of major T-urf13 transcripts is slightly reduced and a novel transcript is detected in T cytoplasm plants containing the dominant nuclear restorer gene Rf1. The 5′ terminus of the restorer-specific transcript mapped internal to T-urf13 and the reduction of major transcripts in plants with Rf1 is not as marked as the reduction in the 13 kDa polypeptide. This raises the possibility that the primary action of the Rf1 gene is associated with translational control, rather than RNA processing.
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Kennell, J.C., Pring, D.R. Initiation and processing of atp6, T-urf13 and ORF221 transcripts from mitochondria of T cytoplasm maize. Mol Gen Genet 216, 16–24 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00332225
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00332225