RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 <em>Dicer-like</em> 5 deficiency confers temperature-sensitive male sterility in maize
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 498410
DO 10.1101/498410
A1 Chong Teng
A1 Han Zhang
A1 Reza Hammond
A1 Kun Huang
A1 Blake C. Meyers
A1 Virginia Walbot
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/12/17/498410.abstract
AB Small RNAs play important roles during plant development by regulating transcript levels of target mRNAs, maintaining genome integrity, and reinforcing DNA methylation. Dicer-like 5 (Dcl5) is proposed to be responsible for precise slicing to generate diverse 24-nt phased, secondary small interfering RNAs (phasiRNAs), which are exceptionally abundant in meiotic anthers of maize, rice, and other grasses 1. The importance and functions of these phasiRNAs remain unclear. Here, we used the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) Cas9 system to mutate Dcl5. We report that dcl5 mutants have few or no 24-nt phasiRNAs, develop short anthers and defective tapetal cells, and exhibit temperature-sensitive male fertility. We propose that DCL5 and 24-nt phasiRNAs are critical for fertility under growth regimes for optimal yield.