The Possible Role of Atp6 Gene in Cytoplasmic Male Sterility in WA (Wild Abortive) Type of Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

The possibility of occurrence of some rearrangements inside and or around coxII and atp6 genes and their relationship with male sterility in rice lines having wild abortive (WA)  cytoplasm was studied. Two sterile (IR58025A and IR62829A) and two maintainer lines (IR58025B and IR62829B) were used. Radioactive Southern blotting was employed to carry out the experiments. The hybridization of coxII gene to the HindIII digests of total DNA from the maintainers and sterile lines was the same, indicating that this gene was not possibly related to male sterility. However, when the atp6 gene was used as a probe and the same lines and procedures were employed, the probe hybridised to different fragments in maintainer lines compared to the sterile lines and their hybridization pattern was totally different. These findings could be interpreted as the occurrence of some rearrangements inside and or around atp6 gene and its probable involvement in the male sterility of WA rice.