the study aimed to investigate the microsporogenesis, tapetum and pollen development in petunia hybrida juss.under control and air pollution condition. the connective shows a well-developed placentoid, giving thesporogenous tissue a crescent-shape. the sporogenous tissue of each of the four anther locules is surrounded bydimorphic tapetum. the outer (towards the epidermis) and inner (towards th...

Pollen tube reception involves a pollen tube-synergid interaction that controls the discharge of sperm cells into the embryo sac during plant fertilization. Despite its importance in the sexual reproduction of plants, little is known about the role of gene regulation in this process. We report here that the pollen-expressed transcription factors MYB97, MYB101 and MYB120 probably control genes w...

Mature pollen from most plant species is metabolically quiescent; however, after pollination, it germinates quickly and gives rise to a pollen tube to transport sperms into the embryo sac. Because methods for collecting a large amount of in vitro germinated pollen grains for transcriptomics and proteomics studies from model plants of Arabidopsis and rice are not available, molecular information...

Zea mays (maize) pollen exines have been purified with the use of differential centrifugation and sucrose gradients, followed by mild detergent and high salt treatment. The final exine fraction is highly purified from other organelles and subcellular structures as assayed by transmission electron microscopy. Using mature maize pollen as the starting material, 0.2 to 0.3% of the total pollen pro...

Mature pollen represents an extremely resistant quiescent structure surrounded by a tough cell wall. After its hydration on stigma papillary cells, pollen tube growth starts rapidly. Massive metabolic changes are likely to be accompanied by changes in protein phosphorylation. Protein phosphorylation belongs among the most rapid post-translational modifications. To date, only Arabidopsis thalian...

The embryo sac, the female gametophyte of flowering plants, plays important roles in the pollination and fertilization process. Maize (Zea mays L.) is a model monocot, but little is known about the interactions between its embryo sac and the pollen tube. In this study, we compared the transcript profiles of mature embryo sacs, mature embryo sacs 14-16 h after pollination, and mature nucelli. Co...

Small non-coding RNAs are essential for development of the sporophyte, the somatic diploid phase of flowering plants. They are integral to key cellular processes such as defense, generation of chromatin structure, and regulation of native gene expression. Surprisingly, very little is known of their presence and function in the male haploid phase of plant development (male gametophyte/pollen gra...