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Mentor pollen: Possible role of wall-held pollen growth promoting substances in overcoming intra- and interspecific incompatibility

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Recent studies have shown that certain normally incompatible, interspecific combinations in the genus Populus, and intraspecific combination in Cosmos bipinnatus can be made compatible by mixing irradiation- or chemically-killed compatible pollen (mentor) with normal incompatible pollen at the time of pollination. Knox and associates have proposed that in the sporophytic system of incompatibility the compatible mentor pollen provides the so-called ‘specific recognition substances’ to the incompatible pollen thereby making the latter compatible. In the present experiments mentor pollen was used in attempts to overcome both intra- and interspecific incompatibility in the genus Nicotiana which has a gametophytic intraspecific incompatibility system. Although not denying that recognition substances specific to pollenpistil incompatibility reactions are present in pollen walls, the results suggest that a role of mentor pollen in overcoming incompatibility may be to provide extra free pollen growth promoting substances (PGS). These substances are apparently able to promote just sufficient further growth to allow some fertilizations by certain pollen tubes with inherently weak expression of incompatibility.

The present proposed ‘PGS-Hypothesis’ also elucidates the physiological basis of the widely-held relationship found between genetic systems of self-incompatibility and sites of pollen inhibition.

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  1. Genetics Unit, Grasslands Division, D.S.I.R., Palmerston North, New Zealand

    Kamla Kant Pandey

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Pandey, K.K. Mentor pollen: Possible role of wall-held pollen growth promoting substances in overcoming intra- and interspecific incompatibility. Genetica 47, 219–229 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00123243

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00123243

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