Volume 26, No 11, Nov 2016

ISSN: 1001-0602 
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018 
impact factor 17.848* 
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)

Volume 26 Issue 11, November 2016: 1242-1254

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Turning rice meiosis into mitosis

Delphine Mieulet¹, Sylvie Jolivet2, Maud Rivard², Laurence Cromer², Aurore Vernet¹, Pauline Mayonove¹, Lucie Pereira², Gaëtan Droc¹, Brigitte Courtois¹, Emmanuel Guiderdoni¹ and Raphael Mercier²

¹CIRAD, UMR AGAP, 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
²Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin, INRA, AgroParisTech, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, RD10, 78000 Versailles, France Correspondence: Emmanuel Guiderdoni, E-mail: guiderdoni@cirad.fr; Raphael Mercier,(raphael.mercier@versailles.inra.fr)

Introduction of clonal reproduction through seeds (apomixis) in crops has the potential to revolutionize agriculture by allowing self-propagation of any elite variety, in particular F1 hybrids. In the sexual model plant Arabidopsis thaliana synthetic clonal reproduction through seeds can be artificially implemented by (i) combining three mutations to turn meiosis into mitosis (MiMe) and (ii) crossing the obtained clonal gametes with a line expressing modified CENH3 and whose genome is eliminated in the zygote. Here we show that additional combinations of mutations can turn Arabidopsis meiosis into mitosis and that a combination of three mutations in rice (Oryza sativa) efficiently turns meiosis into mitosis, leading to the production of male and female clonal diploid gametes in this major crop. Successful implementation of the MiMe technology in the phylogenetically distant eudicot Arabidopsis and monocot rice opens doors for its application to any flowering plant and paves the way for introducing apomixis in crop species.

10.1038/cr.2016.117

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