ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Bioinformatics
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1591130
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring Structural Variants in Plant Pangenomics: Innovations and ApplicationsView all 5 articles
Genome-wide analysis of Rf-PPR-like (RFL) genes in Nicotiana tabacum and their potential roles in anther development
Provisionally accepted
Wu Mengting1
Ji Yan1
Zhang Chengbei2Du Shuaibin1Gong Ruqi2
Wang Jun2Li Jiayi2Zhong Qiu2Li Yuan1
Yang Aiguo1Cheng Yazhi3*Zhang Xingwei1*Liu Guoxiang1*- 1Tobacco Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
- 2Deyang Company of Sichuan Provincial Tobacco Corporation, Deyang, Sichuan Province, China
- 3Fujian Provincial Tobacco Company of China National Tobacco Corporation, Fuzhou, China
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Abstract: Pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) gene family is one of the largest gene families in higher plants. The Restoration of fertility like (RFL) clade of the family plays a crucial role in restoring fertility of cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) lines in plants. Common tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) is an important economic crop of which the CMS hybrids have been widely used in commercial cultivation. However, the restorer line of tobacco and the regulatory mechanism of fertility restoration remain elusive. In addition, PPR and RFL genes have not been illustrated in common tobacco. In this study, a total of 1002 NtPPR genes were identified, of which 27 NtRFLs belonging to P subfamily were demonstrated. The collinearity analysis showed that a total of 15 pairs of NtRFL genes had collinear relationship and unevenly distributed in 9 linkage groups. Cis-element analysis revealed that a large number of environmental stress and phytohormone response elements were located in the promoter of NtRFLs. By combining the RNA-seq and qPCR analysis, NtRFL3 was further selected as the candidate gene due to its significantly higher expression at early anther development in the fertile line MF1. NtRFL3 was predicted to be localized in mitochondria and shared high sequence similarity with the known fertility-restorer PPR592 in petunia. Our results provided new gene targets for molecular breeding of tobacco restorer lines and for illustration of molecular mechanism on fertility restoration of plant CMS lines.
Keywords: Pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) gene family, Restoration of fertility like (RFL) gene, Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS), anther development, Tobacco
Received: 10 Mar 2025; Accepted: 13 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mengting, Yan, Chengbei, Shuaibin, Ruqi, Jun, Jiayi, Qiu, Yuan, Aiguo, Yazhi, Xingwei and Guoxiang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Cheng Yazhi, Fujian Provincial Tobacco Company of China National Tobacco Corporation, Fuzhou, China
Zhang Xingwei, Tobacco Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Qingdao, 266101, Shandong Province, China
Liu Guoxiang, Tobacco Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Qingdao, 266101, Shandong Province, China
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