Cohesin is a multi-subunit protein that plays a pivotal role in holding sister chromatids together during cell division. Sister chromatid cohesion 3 (SCC3), constituents of cohesin complex, is highly conserved from yeast to mammals. Since the deletion of individual cohesin subunit always causes lethality, it is difficult to dissect its biological function in both mitosis and meiosis. Here, we obtained scc3 weak mutants using CRISPR-Cas9 system to explore its function during rice mitosis and meiosis. The scc3 weak mutants displayed obvious vegetative defects and complete sterility, underscoring the essential roles of SCC3 in both mitosis and meiosis. SCC3 is localized on chromatin from interphase to prometaphase in mitosis. However, in meiosis, SCC3 acts as an axial element during early prophase I and subsequently situates onto centromeric regions following the disassembly of the synaptonemal complex. The loading of SCC3 onto meiotic chromosomes depends on REC8. scc3 shows severe defects in homologous pairing and synapsis. Consequently, SCC3 functions as an axial element that is essential for maintaining homologous chromosome pairing and synapsis during meiosis.

The immunofluorescence signals were analyzed and captured using a ZEISS A2 microscope imaging system. Chromosome images were captured using an Olympus (Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan) BX51 fluorescence microscope with a micro CCD camera using software IPLAB4.0 (BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA, USA). STED images were acquired using Abberior STEDYCON (Abberior Instruments GmbH, Göttingen, Germany) fluorescence microscope built on an upright microscope BX53 (Olympus UPlanXAPO 100x, NA1.45, Tokyo, Japan). All STED images were processed by deconvolution approach. All raw microscopy images were combined and adjusted for brightness and contrast using Photoshop software.