Transcriptional silencing of heterologous anther promoters in maize: a genetic method to replace detasseling for seed production.

The promoter of the maize male fertility gene ZmMs45, and other anther-specific maize promoters, was previously shown to be transcriptionally silenced by constitutively expressed promoter-inverted repeat RNAs (pIRs). In addition, ZmMS45pIR-mediated male sterility was reversed by co-expression of Ms45 transcribed by promoters not targeted by pIR RNA silencing. In this report, male fertility was restored to ms45 maize by fusing non-maize inflorescence promoters to the ZmMS45 coding region. This complementation assay also established that these rice or Arabidopsis promoters, when expressed as pIRs, functioned to silence sequence identical promoters. These observations were exploited to develop a genetic method to replace maize detasseling during hybrid seed production. In this system, the ZmMS45 coding region was fused to one of two dissimilar non-maize promoters to generate paired sets of ms45 recessive inbred parents which could be self-pollinated and maintained independently. Linked to each unique Ms45 gene was a non-maize pIR which targeted the promoter transcribing the Ms45 copy contained in the paired inbred parent plant. A cross of these pairs brings the dissimilar pIR cassettes together and resulted in silencing both transformed copies of Ms45. The net result uncovers the ms45 allele carried by the inbreds yielding male sterile progeny. The application of heterologous promoters and transcriptional silencing in plants provides an alternative to post-transcriptional gene silencing as a means to restore and silence gene function in plants.