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Development and Function of the Female Gametophyte

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Plant Developmental Biology - Biotechnological Perspectives

Abstract

For many years, the small size of the ovule of Arabidopsis thaliana has impeded the implementation of reliable techniques for the isolation of large amounts of gametophytic cells. Recently, a combination of genetic strategies and technologies for large-scale transcriptional analysis has resulted in the identification of a significant number of genes that are expressed in the female gametophyte. The comparison of transcripts present in wild-type ovules and mutant ovules lacking a fully differentiated female gametophyte has yielded several hundred genes expressed in the female gametophyte. This chapter reviews recent advances in the genetic and molecular understanding of female gametophyte development and function, emphasizing results associated with global approaches that allowed large-scale transcriptional analysis. Based on these recent advances and their biological interpretation, some crucial questions and problems are discussed that remain to be solved in the coming years.

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Acknowledgements

Research in our laboratory is supported by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the Consejo Estatal de Ciencia y Tecnología del Estado de Guanajuato (CONCyTEG) and the UC-MEXUS initiative. N.S-L. is a recipient of a Ph.D. fellowship from CONACyT; J.P.V.C. is an International Scholar of HHMI.

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  1. National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity, Cinvestav Campus Guanajuato, Km 9.6 Libramiento Norte Carretera Irapuato-Leon, CP36500, Irapuato, Guanajato, Mexico

    N. Sánchez-León & J.-P. Vielle-Calzada

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  1. N. Sánchez-León
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  2. J.-P. Vielle-Calzada
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Correspondence to J.-P. Vielle-Calzada .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. New Era College, Jalan Bukit, Kajang, 43000, Malaysia

    Eng Chong Pua

  2. Dept. Plant Sciences Division, University of Nottingham, Loughborough, LE12 5RD, United Kingdom

    Michael R. Davey

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Sánchez-León, N., Vielle-Calzada, JP. (2010). Development and Function of the Female Gametophyte. In: Pua, E., Davey, M. (eds) Plant Developmental Biology - Biotechnological Perspectives. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02301-9_11

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