Fig. 5. The PME gene contributes to male fertility heterosis in potato.

a The QTL mapping of pollen viability. The cutoff LOD value was set to 3.5. b The pollen viability of different genotypes of PV1. A/A, the A6-26 homozygous genotype (A6-26/A6-26); A/E, the heterozygous genotype (A6-26/E4-63); E/E, the E4-63 homozygous genotype (E4-63/E4-63); n = 185, 399 and 233 for A/A, A/E and E/E, respectively. The upper and lower edges of the boxes denote 75% and 25% quartiles, and the central line indicates the median. Whiskers extend to the lower hinge –1.5× interquartile range and upper hinge +1.5× interquartile range of the data. P values are obtained by Student’s t tests (two-tailed). c The sequence of knockout target and main mutant type of PME^KO plants. d The pollen grain stain of WT and PME^KO plants. Red means good viability. e Statistics of pollen viability of WT and PME^KO plants. n = 20 for WT, KO-1, KO-2 and KO-3; The upper and lower edges of the boxes denote 75% and 25% quartiles, and the central line indicates the median. Whiskers extend to the lower hinge –1.5× interquartile range and upper hinge +1.5× interquartile range of the data. P values are obtained by Student’s t tests (two-tailed). f Pollen germination of WT and PME^KO plants. g The fruit and seed pictures of WT and PME^KO plants. h Statistics of seed number of WT and PME^KO plants. n = 15, 8, 17 and 18 for WT, KO-1, KO-2 and KO-3, respectively. The upper and lower edges of the boxes denote 75% and 25% quartiles, and the central line indicates the median. Whiskers extend to the lower hinge –1.5× interquartile range and upper hinge +1.5× interquartile range of the data. P values are obtained by Student’s t tests (two-tailed). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.