News & Announcements

(August '07)

 

In collaboration with Dr. Gary Drews lab at the University of Utah, we participated in an effort to characterize the temporal and spatial relationship between pollen tube arrival at the female gametophyte and synergid cell death. This work has now been published as a research article in Plant Physiology.

 

Ref:

"Synergid Cell Death in Arabidopsis Is Triggered following Direct Interaction with the Pollen Tube."

 

Linda Sandaklie-Nikolova, Ravishankar Palanivelu, Edward J. King, Gregory P. Copenhaver and Gary N. Drews.

 

Plant Physiology, 144:1753-1762 (2007).

 

Abstract:

During angiosperm reproduction, one of the two synergid cells within the female gametophyte undergoes cell death prior to fertilization. The pollen tube enters the female gametophyte by growing into the synergid cell that undergoes cell death and releases its two sperm cells within the degenerating synergid cytoplasm to effect double fertilization. In Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and many other species, synergid cell death is dependent upon pollination. However, the mechanism by which the pollen tube causes synergid cell death is not understood. As a first step toward understanding this mechanism, we defined the temporal relationship between pollen tube arrival at the female gametophyte and synergid cell death in Arabidopsis. Using confocal laser scanning microscopy, light microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and real-time observation of these two events in vitro, we demonstrate that synergid cell death initiates after the pollen tube arrives at the female gametophyte but before pollen tube discharge. Our results support a model in which a signaling cascade triggered by pollen tube-synergid cell contact induces synergid cell death in Arabidopsis.

 

Time-lapse movies:

The time-lapse movies used in this article can be accessed either

a.) in the journal's supplemental data section of the journal or

b.) in the Images and movies section of our lab website.

 

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