日本冈山大学资源植物研究所教授村田稔率领的研究小组25日宣布，他们成功在植物细胞内人工制造出了带有遗传信息的染色体。这一成果将有助于开发新的作物品种。
研究小组使用拟南芥，利用“自顶向下分析法”，通过操控细胞内原有的染色体，并进行改编，制作出了比通常染色体要小的环状人工染色体。即使是自花授粉的种子，也有40％以上继承了这种人工染色体。
研究小组说，利用植物制作出能被下一代继承的人工染色体，这在世界上尚属首次。通过向这种染色体植入特定的基因，就可培育出能抗病虫和抗倒伏的新植物和作物品种。
村田稔说：“利用这种技术，还可以只在水稻生长期间，植入抗病虫和抗倒伏的基因。”
这一成果的相关论文已刊登在英国《植物杂志》上。（生物谷Bioon.com）
doi:10.1111/tpj.12128
PMC:
PMID:
Generation of an artificial ring chromosome in Arabidopsis by Cre/LoxP-mediated recombination
Minoru Murata, Fukashi Shibata, Akiko Hironaka, Kazunari Kashihara, Satoru Fujimoto, Etsuko Yokota, Kiyotaka Nagaki
A eukaryotic chromosome consists of a centromere, two telomeres and a number of replication origins, and ‘artificial chromosomes’ may be created in yeast and mammals when these three elements are artificially joined and introduced into cells. Plant artificial chromosomes (PACs) have been suggested as new vectors for the development of new crops and as tools for basic research on chromosomes. However, indisputable PAC formation has not yet been confirmed. Here, we present a method for generating PACs in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana using the Cre/LoxP and Activator/Dissociation element systems. The successfully generated PAC, designated AtARC1 (A. thaliana artificial ring chromosome 1), originated from a centromeric edge of the long arm of chromosome 2, but its size (2.85 Mb) is much smaller than that of the original chromosome (26.3 Mb). Although AtARC1 contains only a short centromere domain consisting of 180 bp repeats approximately 250 kb in length, compared with the 3 Mb domain on the original chromosome 2, centromere-specific histone H3 (HTR12) was detected on the centromeric region. This result supported the observed stability of the PAC during mitosis in the absence of selection, and transmission of the PAC to the next generation through meiosis. Because AtARC1 contains a unique LoxP site driven by the CaMV 35S promoter, it is possible to introduce a selectable marker and desired transgenes into AtARC1 at the LoxP site using Cre recombinase. Therefore, AtARC1 meets the criteria for a PAC and is a promising vector.
