Biotechnology Letters, Vol.31, No.3, 409-414, 2009
Expression of a mitochondrial gene orfH79 from the CMS-HongLian rice inhibits Saccharomyces cerevisiae growth and causes excessive ROS accumulation and decrease in ATP
Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) has often been associated with abnormal mitochondrial open reading frames (ORF), orfH79 is a mitochondria chimeric gene being responsible for the CMS trait in Honglian (HL) rice. Weakly expressed ORFH79 strongly inhibits the growth of yeast cells. In addition, the content of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the transformants that expressed ORFH79 was increased by 31%, and ATP was decreased by 41% compared with the control. These results showed ORFH79 peptide is toxic to yeast cells.