It was found that the Cytoplasmic Male Sterility (CMS) line of sorghum 3197A (3A) can be induced to become fertile by heat shock treatment, whereas the maintainer line 3197B (3B) is fertile, whether it is heat shocked or not. During the pollen mother cell (PMC) stage, with heat shock treatment, the 3A line changed into fertile from sterile, and five protein bands: 70kD (HSP 70 ), 31kD, 24kD, 18kD and 16kD were found. And identical bands were also appeared in 3B line with similar treatment. By comparing the amount of protein in mitochondria during ear stage of 3A sorghum, the amount of protein increased by 2.7 times, and was almost as much as that in 3B. A comparison of the heat shock proteins (HSPs) of mitochondria in 3A and 3B lines revealed that HSPs were encoded by the nuclear DNA and transported to the mitochondria. Moreover, HSPs were more heat stable in 3B than in 3A line, and this may be related to the stability of fertility in 3B line. To demonstrate the correlation between fertility and HSPs, DNA complementary to HSP 70 was injected into ears of 3A and 3B line. It is found that under normal conditions, there was no HSP 70 mRNA in 3A line, whereas after heat shock this mRNA appeared, and the antisense cDNA could combine with the target RNA of 3B either dealt with normal temperature or heat shocked. These results are discussed within the frame of fertility versus sterility in sorghum.
