Maternal Control of Embryogenesis by
 MEDEA
 , a
 Polycomb
 Group Gene in
 Arabidopsis

Grossniklaus, Ueli; Vielle‐Calzada, Jean‐Philippe; Hoeppner, Marilu A.; Gagliano, Wendy B.

doi:10.1126/science.280.5362.446

Cited by 788 publications

(672 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The Pc-G complex FERTILIZATION INDEPENDENT SEED (FIS) contains the SET domain protein MEDEA (MEA) [11], the VEFS domain protein FIS2 [12], and the WD40 domain protein FERTILIZA-TION INDEPENDENT ENDOSPERM (FIE) [13]. Loss-of-function mutations of FIS genes cause autonomous onset of cell division in the central cell in the absence of fertilization [14,15].…”

Section: Control Of Cell Cycle Progression Before and After Fertilizamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Endosperm: an integrator of seed growth and development

Berger

Grini

Schnittger

2006

Current Opinion in Plant Biology

165

105

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Section: Control Of Cell Cycle Progression Before and After Fertilizamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The paternal allele of MEA and FIS2 is silenced. As a consequence, the maternal inheritance of a null allele, mea or fis2, cannot be rescued by a paternal wildtype MEA or FIS2 allele and is sufficient to cause maternal effects on endosperm development [11,14,15,17].…”

Section: Coordination Of Maternal and Zygotic Cues During Seed Develomentioning

confidence: 99%

Endosperm: an integrator of seed growth and development

Berger

Grini

Schnittger

2006

Current Opinion in Plant Biology

165

105

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“…Alternatively, a gene dosage-dependent mechanism might underlie the parent-of-origin effect of fie on seed viability; that is, a single copy of the paternal wild-type FIE gene may not be able to compensate for the lack of gene activity associated with two maternal mutant fie alleles within the triploid endosperm. Finally, FIE could be an imprinted gene in which the maternal allele is expressed and the paternal allele is silenced.Plants with mutations in either the MEDEA ( MEA ) or FER-TILIZATION-INDEPENDENT SEED2 ( FIS2 ) gene display phenotypes similar to those of fie mutant plants (Chaudhury et al, 1997;Grossniklaus et al, 1998;Kiyosue et al, 1999). The MEA gene encodes a SET (Jenuwein et al, 1998) domain polycomb protein (Grossniklaus et al, 1998;Kiyosue et al, 1999;Luo et al, 1999), whereas FIS2 encodes a zinc finger protein (Luo et al, 1999).…”

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confidence: 99%

Mutations in the FIE and MEA Genes That Encode Interacting Polycomb Proteins Cause Parent-of-Origin Effects on Seed Development by Distinct Mechanisms

et al. 2000

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In flowering plants, two cells are fertilized in the haploid female gametophyte. Egg and sperm nuclei fuse to form the embryo. A second sperm nucleus fuses with the central cell nucleus, which replicates to generate the endosperm, a tissue that supports embryo development. The FERTILIZATION-INDEPENDENT ENDOSPERM ( FIE ) and MEDEA ( MEA ) genes encode WD and SET domain polycomb proteins, respectively. In the absence of fertilization, a female gametophyte with a loss-of-function fie or mea allele initiates endosperm development without fertilization. fie and mea mutations also cause parent-of-origin effects, in which the wild-type maternal allele is essential and the paternal allele is dispensable for seed viability. Here, we show that FIE and MEA polycomb proteins interact physically, suggesting that the molecular partnership of WD and SET domain polycomb proteins has been conserved during the evolution of flowering plants. The overlapping expression patterns of FIE and MEA are consistent with their suppression of gene transcription and endosperm development in the central cell as well as their control of seed development after fertilization. Although FIE and MEA interact, differences in maternal versus paternal patterns of expression, as well as the effect of a recessive mutation in the DECREASE IN DNA METHYLATION1 ( DDM1 ) gene on mutant allele transmission, indicate that fie and mea mutations cause parent-of-origin effects on seed development by distinct mechanisms. INTRODUCTIONFlowering plant reproduction involves fertilization of two cells (reviewed in van Went and Willemse, 1984). Within the Arabidopsis ovule, the female gametophyte consists of an egg cell and two synergid cells at the micropylar end, a central cell in the middle, and three antipodal cells at the chalazal end. All are haploid except for the central cell, which contains two polar nuclei that fuse to form a diploid nucleus. Reproduction is initiated when an entering pollen tube discharges two genetically identical haploid sperm cells. Fertilization of the egg generates the diploid embryo, which passes through morphologically defined stages (globular, heart, torpedo, walking stick, early maturation, and maturation) (Goldberg et al., 1994;Jurgens and Mayer, 1994). During embryo development, two organ systems (axis and cotyledon) and three tissue layers (protoderm, procambium, and ground meristem) are specified (Lindsey and Topping, 1993;Jurgens, 1994;Meinke, 1994).Fertilization of the central cell generates the triploid endosperm, for which the pattern of development differs dramatically from that of the embryo. Arabidopsis endosperm development is characteristic of nuclear endosperm development in angiosperms (Mansfield and Briarty, 1990a;Webb and Gunning, 1991;Berger, 1999;Brown et al., 1999). The Arabidopsis primary endosperm nucleus replicates without cytokinesis to form a syncytium of nuclear-cytoplasmic domains that migrate to the periphery of the expanding central cell (Brown et al., 1999). When the embryo is at the globular/heart transi...

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“…In our revious investigations on Arabidopsis t-DNA insertional embryonic mutant, down regulation of alanyl-tRNA synthetase gene expression in early embryogenesis lead to arrested embryo development in globular stage [10], which indicates that the translation of stored mRNA may be important for early embryo development. Furthermore, a maternal effect mutant, MEDEA, was identified in Arabidopsis and the MEA gene was cloned and characterized [11]. This results suggest that similar maternal regulation mechanism may exist in both animals and higher plants.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Rice bicoid-related cDNA sequence and its expression during early embryogenesis

Yang

Zhu

2001

Cell Res

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Bicoid is one of the important Drosophila maternal genes involved in the control of embryo polarity and larvae segmentation. To clone and characterize the rice bicoid-related genes, one cDNA clone, Rb24 (EMBL accession number: AJ2771380), was isolated by screening of rice unmature seed cDNA library. Sequence analysis indicates that Rb24 contains a putative amino acid sequence, which is homologous to unique 8 amino acids sequence within Drosophila bicoid homeodomain (50% identity, 75% similarity) and involves a lys-9 in putative helix 3. Northern blot analysis of rice RNA has shown that this sequence is expressed in a tissue-specific manner. The transcript was detected strongly in young panicles, but less in young leaves and roots. This results are further confirmed with paraffin section in situ hybridization. The signal is intensive in rice globular embryo and located at the apical tip of the embryo, then, along with the development of embryo, the signal is getting reduced and transfers into both sides of embryo. The existence of bicoidrelated sequence in rice embryo and the similarity of polar distribution of bicoid and Rb24 mRNA in early embryo development may implicates a conserved maternal regulation mechanism of body axis presents in Drosophila and in rice.

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Maternal Control of Embryogenesis by MEDEA , a Polycomb Group Gene in Arabidopsis

Cited by 788 publications

References 19 publications

Endosperm: an integrator of seed growth and development

Endosperm: an integrator of seed growth and development

Mutations in the FIE and MEA Genes That Encode Interacting Polycomb Proteins Cause Parent-of-Origin Effects on Seed Development by Distinct Mechanisms

Rice bicoid-related cDNA sequence and its expression during early embryogenesis

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