2026-03-03 マックス・プランク研究所
Flowers of tobacco plants. A tobacco plant that harbors defective mitochondria has wrinkled and male-sterile flowers (left). These defects can be rescued in the offspring by inheritance of healthy paternal mitochondria, resulting in restoration of flower beauty and fertility (right).© MPI-MP/sevens+maltry
＜関連情報＞
- https://www.mpg.de/26219399/paternal-mitochondria-rescuing-plant-fertility
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-026-02242-7
低温ストレスとゲノム分解ヌクレアーゼの喪失による植物ミトコンドリアの高頻度二親遺伝 High-frequency biparental inheritance of plant mitochondria upon chilling stress and loss of a genome-degrading nuclease
Enrique Gonzalez-Duran,Zizhen Liang,Joachim Forner,Dennis Kleinschmidt,Weiqi Wang,Liwen Jiang,Kin Pan Chung & Ralph Bock
Nature Plants Published:03 March 2026
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-026-02242-7
Abstract
Mitochondria are inherited maternally in the vast majority of eukaryotes. Occasional transmission of paternal mitochondria (paternal leakage) can lead to heterochondriomy and recombination between maternal and paternal mitochondrial genomes. Despite its potential physiological and evolutionary consequences, the extent of paternal leakage and the cellular processes governing mitochondrial inheritance remain largely unknown. Here we have established a robust genetic screen to detect paternal mitochondrial inheritance in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum). Our data reveal an unexpectedly high paternal transmission frequency of 0.18%, which increased markedly to 7.34% when the organellar exonuclease DPD1 was disrupted and pollen development occurred at low temperature. Notably, paternally transmitted mitochondria restored growth, development and male fertility in progeny that inherited dysfunctional mitochondria from the maternal parent. Together, our findings uncover molecular mechanisms underlying maternal mitochondrial inheritance, and highlight the potential of biparental transmission to rescue mitochondrial function and generate novel mitochondrial genotypes through recombination.
