Two loosely linked genes controlling the female specificity for cross-incompatibility in rice

Cross-incompatibility caused by endosperm abortion was found in advanced generations of backcrossing between the Asian wild (W593) and cultivated (T65wx) rice strains. The near isogenic line, T65WxS6(W593), carrying a segment of chromosome 6 from W593 showed a low seed setting when pollinated with pollen grains of T65wx in spite of the fact that the reciprocal cross gave a high seed setting. The unidirectional or asymmetric crossing barrier was previously explained by an interaction between Cif and cim, both of which acted sporophytically, resulting in the cross-incompatibility reactions in the female (CIF) and male (CIM), respectively. In the genetic model, endosperm abortion is induced only when CIF gametes are fertilized with CIM gametes. This predicted that the double homozygote for Cif and cim might be self-incompatible since the plant expresses both CIF and CIM simultaneously. However, we failed to obtain such a self-incompatible plant by transferring Cif into a cim plant. The present results showed that CIF is controlled not only by Cif but also by an additional gene(s) loosely linked with it. We propose here that Cif1 (formerly named as Cif) and Cif2 determine CIF. In addition, Cif2 and Cim were not separated due to restriction of recombination, which might explain why it is difficult to obtain a self-incompatible rice plant expressing both CIF and CIM.