INTRODUCTION Unlike animals, in which male and female gametes are derived from germline stem cells, plants produce their gametes from somatic cells that are directed onto specialised pathways based on their position within the reproductive organ, rather than their lineage (Huala and Sussex, 1993; Nonomura et al., 2007). Formation of the female gametophyte (FG) in Arabidopsis ovules begins with ...

We isolated mutations in Arabidopsis to understand how the female gametophyte controls embryo and endosperm development. For the DEMETER (DME) gene, seed viability depends only on the maternal allele. DME encodes a large protein with DNA glycosylase and nuclear localization domains. DME is expressed primarily in the central cell of the female gametophyte, the progenitor of the endosperm. DME is...

In eukaryotes, eIF4E translation initiation factors are essential proteins encoded by a small multigene family. In plants, they are a major source of host plant resistance to potyviruses that require specific 4E factors to infect cells. Combining mutations in different eIF4E genes could be a way of broadening the spectrum of plant resistance to viruses. We attempted to combine null mutations af...

Manuscript electronical Premise of research. Ferns (monilophytes) and lycophytes are unique among land plants in having two independent life stages: the gametophyte generation, which is generally small, cordiform, and short-lived, senescing after fertilization, and the sporophyte generation, which is considered the dominant, long-lived portion of the life cycle produced following fertilization....

Pollen tube guidance in flowering plants is a unique and critical process for successful sexual reproduction. The pollen tube that grows from pollen, which is the male gametophyte, precisely navigates to the embryo sac, which is the female gametophyte, within the pistil. Recent advances have clarified the molecular framework of gametophytic pollen tube guidance. Multiple species-specific attrac...

In eukaryotes, coat protein complex II (COPII) vesicles mediate anterograde traffic from the endoplasmic reticulum to Golgi apparatus. Compared yeasts, plants have multiple COPII proteins; however, functional diversity among them is less well understood. SEC31A and SEC31B are outer proteins found in Arabidopsis. this study, we explored function of compared it with that various perspectives. was...