Synthetic apomixis: the beginning of a new era

作者：Jie Xiong, Fengyue Hu, Jun Ren, Yong Huang, Chaolei Liu, Kejian Wang · 发表于：Current Opinion in Biotechnology · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1016/j.copbio.2022.102877 · 被引用次数：58 · 研究领域：Plant Taxonomy and Phylogenetics、Plant and fungal interactions、Seedling growth and survival studies

Apomixis is a process of asexual reproduction that enables plants to bypass meiosis and fertilization to generate clonal seeds that are identical to the maternal genotype. Apomixis has tremendous potential for breeding plants with desired characteristics, given its ability to fix any elite genotype. However, little is known about the origin and dynamics of natural apomictic plant systems. The introgression of apomixis-related genes from natural apomicts has achieved limited success. Therefore, synthetic apomixis, engineered to include apomeiosis, autonomous embryo formation, and autonomous endosperm development, has been proposed as a promising platform to effectuate apomixis in any crop. In this study, we have summarized recent advances in the understanding of synthetic apomixis and discussed the limitations of current synthetic apomixis systems and ways to overcome them.