Mapping and confirming new genes in Arabidopsis thaliana involved in formation of distinct cellular domains on pollen surface.
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Date
2018-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Pollen wall exine is placed in species-specific patterns around pollen grains to protect them and facilitate plant reproduction. In the pollen of the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana, exine is deposited non-uniformly, always resulting in the formation of three longitudinal gaps not covered by exine. These gaps are called apertures, and they help pollen to control its moisture content in response to the environment and allow emergence of the pollen tube during pollen germination. The precision with which apertures are formed, and the fact that their patterns are diverse across species, make pollen apertures a powerful model for studying how cells specify and develop extracellular domains. Previously, only one gene, INP1, had been known to influence pollen aperture formation in Arabidopsis. In order to identify other genes involved in this process, a genetic screen was performed on mutagenized plants. Five complementation groups defective in aperture formation have been found, and positional cloning isolated gene candidates for four of these groups. To confirm the identity of two of these genes, for mutant groups macaron and donut, and to initiate their characterization, multiple constructs containing wild-type versions of these candidate genes were created with the addition of fluorescent tags and transformed into each mutant population. T1 plants containing the constructs were selected and assessed for rescue of the wild-type phenotype.
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Keywords
Arabidopsis thaliana, pollen, exine, aperture, extracellular deposition, genetics screen