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Plant biology

Engineered male sterility

Nature volume 436, pages 783–785 (2005)Cite this article

The phenomenon of ‘cytoplasmic male sterility’ in plants has long been exploited to enhance the productivity of certain crops. An innovative genetic-engineering system promises to widen applicability of the approach.

Among the main items on the wish-list of plant breeders are these. First, the ability to artificially suppress pollination and so prevent a plant's self-fertilization, thereby encouraging cross-pollination and higher-yielding seed through an effect known as ‘hybrid vigour’. Second, the ability to genetically engineer such suppression of male fertility into elements in the cytoplasm, rather than the nucleus — the result is transmission of desirable characteristics through genes in the female line, and those genes cannot ‘escape’ uncontrollably via pollen. Third, the ability to selectively restore male fertility. Although farmers want high-yielding hybrid seeds, for certain crops that seed has to produce fertile plants.

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Figure 1: Engineering cytoplasmic male sterility with β-ketothiolase1.

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  1. National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, PO Box 577, Postcode 38000, Jhang Road, Faisalabad, Pakistan

    Muhammad Sarwar Khan

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  1. Muhammad Sarwar Khan
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Khan, M. Engineered male sterility. Nature 436, 783–785 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/436783a

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