Expression of nuclear and chloroplastic genes coding for fraction-1 protein in somatic hybrids of Nicotiana tabacum + rustica

Abstract

In the sexual interspecific cross, Nicotiana rustica L.xN. tabacum L., N. rustica can serve as the female but not as the male parent. By fusion of protoplasts, the barrier to fertilization was overcome and somatic hybrids containing N. tabacum cytoplasm were produced as shown by isoelectric focusing of the Fraction-1 protein (F-1-protein). All somatic hybrids displayed polypeptides of the large subunit of F-1 protein (which is coded by the chloroplast genome) characteristic of only one or the other parental species. Two hybrids had large subunits of the N. tabacum type and two hybrids had those of the N. rustica type. Three hybrids contained three smallsubunit polypeptides (coded by the nuclear genome), one being characteristic of N. rustica, one characteristic of N. tabacum, and one with an isoelectric point common to both species. A fourth hybrid contained only two small-subunit polypeptides of the N. tabacum type but in a F-1 protein macromolecule whose large subunits were of the N. rustica type. One somatic hybrid was self-fertile and its F2 progeny contained large- and small-subunit polypeptides indistinguishable in their isoelectric points from those in the parent F1 hybrid. All somatic hybrids showed an aneuploid chromosome number and morphological characteristics intermediate between those of N. rustica and N. tabacum.