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The late pollen actins are essential for normal male and female development in Arabidopsis

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Abstract

In angiosperms the late pollen actins (LPAs) are strongly expressed in mature pollen and pollen tubes and at much lower levels in ovules. Four Arabidopsis lines with homozygous knockout mutations in the four individual LPA genes displayed normal flowers, pollen, and seed set. However, when all four LPAs were silenced simultaneously with a single RNA interference (RNAi) construct targeting the 3′UTR of each mRNA, obvious reproductive defects were observed. Western analysis of various Late Pollen actin RNA interference (LPRi) epialleles showed total LPA protein and RNA expression levels were knocked down from 0% to 95% compared to wild-type levels. Reciprocal crosses with the RNAi lines demonstrated that lowered LPA expression was associated with defects in both male and female fertility. Strong epialleles showed significant reductions in normal silique and seed production and were nearly sterile. Dissection of the siliques from moderate LPRi epialleles revealed many unfertilized ovules, increased numbers of aborted seeds, and decreased numbers of healthy seeds. Microscopic analysis of LPRi pollen indicated that the pollen shape and size were normal, but pollen germinated poorly. While multiple LPA genes may have some functional redundancy, the combined expression of multiple LPA genes appears essential to normal male and female reproductive development.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Daphne Preuss for providing the male-sterile mutant used in the pollination assays. The oligonucleotides for PCR screening were made either at the UGA Molecular Genetics Instrumentation Facility or at Integrated DNA Technologies (Coralville, IA). This work was supported by National Institute of Health grants, GM36397 and GM066378-021, awarded to RBM and LCP, respectively.

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  1. Lucia Cardenas Pawloski

    Present address: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Rd., Atlanta, GA, 30333, USA

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  1. Department of Genetics, Life Sciences Building, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    Lucia Cardenas Pawloski, Muthugapatti K. Kandasamy & Richard Brian Meagher

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  1. Lucia Cardenas Pawloski
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  2. Muthugapatti K. Kandasamy
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Correspondence to Richard Brian Meagher.

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Pawloski, L.C., Kandasamy, M.K. & Meagher, R.B. The late pollen actins are essential for normal male and female development in Arabidopsis . Plant Mol Biol 62, 881–896 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-006-9063-5

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