TY - JOUR
T1 - A Fruitful Journey
T2 - Pollen Tube Navigation from Germination to Fertilization
AU - Johnson, Mark A.
AU - Harper, Jeffrey F.
AU - Palanivelu, Ravishankar
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) grants to M.A.J. (NSF IOS-1353798 and IOS-1540019), J.F.H. (NSF IOS-1656774), and R.P. (NSF IOS-1146090) and the NSF-supported Research Collaborative Network on Integrative Pollen Biology (IOS-0955910 to Principal Investigator Alice Cheung). R.P. acknowledges Nicholas James Desnoyer for his help with generating Figure 6.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - In flowering plants, pollen tubes undergo tip growth to deliver two nonmotile sperm to the ovule where they fuse with an egg and central cell to achieve double fertilization. This extended journey involves rapid growth and changes in gene activity that manage compatible interactions with at least seven different cell types. Nearly half of the genome is expressed in haploid pollen, which facilitates genetic analysis, even of essential genes. These unique attributes make pollen an ideal system with which to study plant cell-cell interactions, tip growth, cell migration, the modulation of cell wall integrity, and gene expression networks. We highlight the signaling systems required for pollen tube navigation and the potential roles of Ca 2+ signals. The dynamics of pollen development make sexual reproduction highly sensitive to heat stress. Understanding this vulnerability may generate strategies to improve seed crop yields that are under threat from climate change.
AB - In flowering plants, pollen tubes undergo tip growth to deliver two nonmotile sperm to the ovule where they fuse with an egg and central cell to achieve double fertilization. This extended journey involves rapid growth and changes in gene activity that manage compatible interactions with at least seven different cell types. Nearly half of the genome is expressed in haploid pollen, which facilitates genetic analysis, even of essential genes. These unique attributes make pollen an ideal system with which to study plant cell-cell interactions, tip growth, cell migration, the modulation of cell wall integrity, and gene expression networks. We highlight the signaling systems required for pollen tube navigation and the potential roles of Ca 2+ signals. The dynamics of pollen development make sexual reproduction highly sensitive to heat stress. Understanding this vulnerability may generate strategies to improve seed crop yields that are under threat from climate change.
KW - Ca2+
KW - cell-cell interaction
KW - cellular migration
KW - fertilization
KW - pollen tube
KW - receptor-like kinase
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U2 - 10.1146/annurev-arplant-050718-100133
DO - 10.1146/annurev-arplant-050718-100133
M3 - Review article
C2 - 30822112
AN - SCOPUS:85065086386
VL - 70
SP - 809
EP - 837
JO - Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology
JF - Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology
SN - 1543-5008
ER -