Haploid Induction and Genome Instability

Trends in Genetics Volume 35, Issue 11, November 2019 Pages 791-803

Advances in DNA sequencing and genome analysis enable both reinterpretation of historical data as well as discovery of plant genome instability in the field and in experimental systems. Genome instability, which in animals is associated with cancer, can be triggered in plants by multiple causes, including crosses between parents with incompatible genomes. Mechanisms leading to instability are common across plant and animal kingdoms, involving failure in chromosome partitioning between dividing cells, DNA breaks, and faulty repair.

Haploid induction, an important tool in plant breeding, can result from alteration of a chromatin protein that determines centromeres and promotes genome instability. Plant tolerance to genomic imbalance and to aneuploidy may provide increased opportunity for evolutionary success of karyotypic novelty generated by genome instability.