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First published online 5 January 2005
doi: 10.1242/dev.01595

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplementary Material A corrigendum has been published All Versions of this Article: dev.01595v1 132/3/603    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in Development Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Pagnussat, G. C. Articles by Sundaresan, V. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Pagnussat, G. C. Articles by Sundaresan, V.

Genetic and molecular identification of genes required for female gametophyte development and function in Arabidopsis

Gabriela C. Pagnussat^1,*, Hee-Ju Yu^1,2,*, Quy A. Ngo¹, Sarojam Rajani¹, Sevugan Mayalagu^1,, Cameron S. Johnson¹, Arnaud Capron¹, Li-Fen Xie^3,, De Ye^3, and Venkatesan Sundaresan^1,4,¶

¹ Section of Plant Biology, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA
² National Horticultural Research Institute, RDA, I-Mok dong 475, Jang-An Gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi-Do, 440-706 Republic of Korea
³ Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, 61 Biopolis Drive, Singapore 138673, Republic of Singapore
⁴ Department of Agronomy, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA

^¶ Author for correspondence (e-mail: sundar{at}ucdavis.edu).

Accepted 25 November 2004

The plant life cycle involves an alternation of generations between sporophyte and gametophyte. Currently, the genes and pathways involved in gametophytic development and function in flowering plants remain largely unknown. A large-scale mutant screen of Ds transposon insertion lines was employed to identify 130 mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana with defects in female gametophyte development and function. A wide variety of mutant phenotypes were observed, ranging from defects in different stages of early embryo sac development to mutants with apparently normal embryo sacs, but exhibiting defects in processes such as pollen tube guidance, fertilization or early embryo development. Unexpectedly, nearly half of the mutants isolated in this study were found to be primarily defective in post-fertilization processes dependent on the maternal allele, suggesting that genes expressed from the female gametophyte or the maternal genome play a major role in the early development of plant embryos. Sequence identification of the genes disrupted in the mutants revealed genes involved in protein degradation, cell death, signal transduction and transcriptional regulation required for embryo sac development, fertilization and early embryogenesis. These results provide a first comprehensive overview of the genes and gene products involved in female gametophyte development and function within a flowering plant.

Key words: Arabidopsis thaliana, Female gametophyte, Embryo sac development, Fertilization, Maternal effect, Transposon insertion mutants

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Delving deeper into plant reproduction

Development 2005 132: e305. [Full Text]  

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