Tetrad sterility, in which only clumps of four premature pollen grains are released from anthers, has been observed some modern potato cultivars. It is a form cytoplasmic male sterility caused by the cytoplasm derived Mexican tetraploid species Solanum stoloniferum Schltdl. & Bouché., an important source resistance to Potato virus Y breeding. However, since S. highly polymorphic, tetrad-sterili...

RNA editing and cytoplasmic male sterility are two important phenomena in higher plant mitochondria. To determine whether correlations might exist between the two, RNA editing in different tissues of Sorghum bicolor was compared employing reverse transcription-PCR and subsequent sequence analysis. In etiolated shoots, RNA editing of transcripts of plant mitochondrial atp6, atp9, nad3, nad4, and...

Mitochondria are responsible for providing energy currency to life processes in the molecular form of ATP and are therefore typically referred to as the power factories of cells. Plant mitochondria are also relevant to the common phenomenon of cytoplasmic male sterility, which is agronomically important in various crop species. Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) is a complex trait that may be inf...

Although the physiological role of plant mitochondria is thought to vary in different tissues at progressive stages of development, there has been little documentation that the complement of mitochondrial proteins is altered in different plant organs. Because the phenomenon of cytoplasmic male sterility suggests an unusual function for mitochondria in floral buds, we examined the tissue-specifi...