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Non-Mendelian regulation and allelic variation of methionine-rich delta-zein genes in maize

Theoretical and Applied Genetics volume 119, pages 721–731 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Sufficient methionine levels in the seed are critical for the supply of a balanced diet for feed and food. Currently, animal feed is supplemented with chemically synthesized methionine, which could be completely replaced with naturally synthesized methionine. However, insufficient levels of methionine are due to alleles of two genes in the maize genome that are expressed during seed development, which have a high percentage of methionine codons, ranging from 23 to 28%, while free methionine is very low. The two genes, dzs10 and dzs18, belong to the prolamin gene family that arose during the evolution of the grasses and were duplicated during a whole genome duplication event. We have found several dzs10 and dzs18 null alleles caused either by transposon insertion or frame shift mutations. Maize seeds with null mutations of both genes have a normal phenotype in contrast to other prolamin genes, explaining the accumulation of methionine deficiency in normal breeding efforts. Moreover, the trans-regulation of these genes deviates from Mendelian inheritance. One allele of the regulatory locus dzr1 is inherited in a parent-of-origin fashion, while another allele appears to prevent Mendelian segregation of the high-methionine phenotype in backcrosses.

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Acknowledgments

The research described in this manuscript was supported by the Selman A. Waksman Chair in Molecular Genetics and a grant from the DOE (# DE-FG05-95ER20194) to JM.

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  1. Waksman Institute of Microbiology, Rutgers University, 190 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA

    Yongrui Wu, Wolfgang Goettel & Joachim Messing

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  1. Yongrui Wu
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  2. Wolfgang Goettel
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  3. Joachim Messing
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Correspondence to Joachim Messing.

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Communicated by T. Luebberstedt.

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Fig. 1

Position of the Misfit transposon in dzs10-A654: Misfit is inserted in the 82nd codon encoding proline. The first nucleotide of each codon is bolded. The 10,872 bp element contains CACTA sequences (underlined) in its TIRs (framed), which is characteristic for the CACTA-family of transposable elements (Fu et al. 2002). Misfit is flanked by a3 bp target site duplication, CGC (framed) (PDF 266 kb)

Fig. 2

Alignment of presumed regulatory sequences of both delta zein genes: a The promoter and 5’UTR sequences of dzs10 and dzs18 from B73 are aligned. The “TATA” box (colored in blue), transcription start site (colored in green), start codon (colored in red) are highlighted. The numbers are relative to the transcription start site; b The 3’UTR sequences of dzs10 and dzs18 from B73 are aligned. The numbers are relative to their stop codons (colored in violet) (PDF 674 kb)

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Wu, Y., Goettel, W. & Messing, J. Non-Mendelian regulation and allelic variation of methionine-rich delta-zein genes in maize. Theor Appl Genet 119, 721–731 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-009-1083-5

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Keywords

  • Inbred Line
  • Reciprocal Cross
  • Prolamin
  • Genome Duplication Event
  • Methionine Level