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Molecular control of autonomous embryo and endosperm development

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Abstract

Precocious seed development is usually prevented by a series of mechanisms that ensure seed production results from double fertilization. These events are circumvented in natural apomictic plant species that reproduce clonally through seed. Recent advances in molecular genetics using mutagenic approaches in model sexual plant species, such as Arabidopsis and Zea mays, have revealed some of the mechanisms that prevent such precocious seed development. An understanding of these mechanisms may lead to the development of techniques that will allow future crop plant species exhibiting hybrid vigor to be engineered such that their complex genomes can be fixed indefinitely, thereby maintaining high yields. Our current understanding of the mechanisms underlying the processes of reproductive development is discussed in this review.

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  1. Institute of Plant Biology and Zürich-Basel Plant Science Center, University of Zürich, Zollikerstrasse, 107, 8008, Zürich, Switzerland

    Mark Douglas Curtis & Ueli Grossniklaus

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  1. Mark Douglas Curtis
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Correspondence to Mark Douglas Curtis.

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Communicated by Thomas Dresselhaus.

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Curtis, M.D., Grossniklaus, U. Molecular control of autonomous embryo and endosperm development. Sex Plant Reprod 21, 79–88 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00497-007-0061-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00497-007-0061-9

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