向日葵有性生殖的单倍体兼性孤雌生殖，这一成果由美国先正达作物保护有限责任公司Timothy Kelliher研究组经过不懈努力而取得。这一研究成果于2025年4月2日发表在国际顶尖学术期刊《自然》上。

在抑制向日葵花粉磷脂酶活性产生单倍体胚胎的实验中，该研究团队偶然发现，阉割的向日葵会自发形成孤雌单倍体种子。对遗传、化学和环境因素的探索表明，特定的基因型背景使孤雌生殖率高，全谱高强度光补充促进孤雌生殖，每穗产生数百个单倍体种子。双单倍体植株的诱导可以大大提高植株的育种效率；然而，尽管在许多作物中成功地进行了单倍体诱导工程，但很少有报道的系统具有商业可扩展性。

在这里，该团队报告了化学阉割和基因组加倍的有效方法，以产生可育植株，并使可扩展的向日葵双单倍体系统成为可能。

据了解，开花植物有性生殖需要双重受精，产生胚和胚乳种子室：后者支持胚胎生长和种子萌发。

附：英文原文

Title: Haploid facultative parthenogenesis in sunflower sexual reproduction

Author: Lv, Jian, Liang, Dawei, Bumann, Eric, Mirleau Thebaud, Virginie, Jin, Huaibing, Li, Changbao, Paris, Clemence, Dan, Yinghui, Li, Chao, Cui, Ruijie, Chen, Xianxia, Szwerdszarf, David, Wittich, Peter, Clegg, Bobby, Tassara, Agustin, Dan, Hongmei, Tian, Xiaolong, Liu, Zhiqiang, Cai, Wen, Sun, Bin, Carter, Jared, Drayton, Paul, Bock, Federico, Kelliher, Timothy

Issue&Volume: 2025-04-02

Abstract: Flowering plant sexual reproduction requires double fertilization, yielding embryo and endosperm seed compartments: the latter supports embryo growth and seed germination. In an experiment to generate haploid embryos through inhibition of pollen phospholipase activity in sunflower (Helianthus annus), we serendipitously discovered that emasculated sunflowers spontaneously form parthenogenic haploid seed. Exploration of genetic, chemical and environmental factors demonstrated that a specific genotype background enabled high parthenogenesis and that full spectrum high-intensity light supplementation boosted parthenogenesis, yielding hundreds of haploid seeds per head. Induction of doubled haploid plants can greatly accelerate plant breeding efficiency; however, despite successful engineering of haploid induction in many crops, few reported systems are commercially scalable1. Here we report efficient methods of chemical emasculation and genome doubling to produce fertile plants and enable a scalable sunflower doubled haploid system.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08798-2

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08798-2