| Abstract Detail
Reproductive Development Tsukamoto, Tatsuya [1], Drews, Gary [2], Palanivelu, Ravishankar [3]. Characterization of a female gametophytic Arabidopsis mutant defective in pollen tube guidance. A pollen tube encounters many interactions with female gametophytic cells on its journey to female gametophyte such as attraction, repulsion and adhesion. This journey begins with pollen tube growing between the walls of stigma cells, traveling through the extracellular matrix of the transmitting tract, and finally arriving at the ovary, where it migrates up the funiculus, and enter the micropyle of an ovule to deliver the two sperm cells-one fertilizes an egg and other the central cell. Thus a pollen tube navigates past several different female cells before it reaches the egg. Signals that mediate the migration of a pollen tube to an ovule remain poorly characterized. A female gametophytic mutant, fem137 was obtained by screening for plants with reduced seed set from a T-DNA insertion collection. Siliques in fem137/+ plants contain significantly reduced number of seeds (30-40 seeds per silique) compared to wild-type (~ 60 seeds per silique). To explore the basis of reduced seed set, we pollinated fem137/+ pistils with LAT52:GUS pollen and stained for GUS activity. In the fem137/+ pistils, although pollen tube germination and growth in transmitting tract was normal, nearly half of the ovules were not targeted by the pollen tube and remained unfertilized. Since the kanamycin marker on the T-DNA does not co-segregate with the reduced seed set phenotype, we are using map-based cloning procedure to identify the gene(s) defined by fem137 mutation. Progress on the cloning and characterization of fem137 will be presented.
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Related Links:
Palanivelu lab
1 - University of Arizona, Department of Plant Sciences, 303 Forbes Building, Tucson, Arizona, 85721, U.S.A.
2 - University of Utah, Department of Biology
3 - University of Arizona, Department of Plant Sciences
Keywords:
Arabidopsis
Female gametophytic mutant
fem137
pollen tube guidance.
Presentation Type: Plant Biology Abstract
Session: P
Location: Exhibit Hall (Northeast, Southwest & Southeast)/Hilton
Date: Sunday, July 8th, 2007
Time: 8:00 AM
Number: P28051
Abstract ID:1907 |
