Abstract
The pollen specificity of the Arabidopsis arabinogalactan protein (AGP) genes AGP6 and AGP11 suggests that they are integral to pollen biogenesis, and their high percent of sequence similarity may indicate a potential for overlapping function. Arabidopsis agp6 agp11 double null mutants have been studied in our laboratory, and in the present work, we characterize the germination and growth of its pollen. When compared to wild type, mutant agp6 agp11 pollen displayed reduced germination and elongation, both in vivo and in vitro, and precocious germination inside the anthers, provided that sufficient moisture was available. This characteristic was not observed in wild type plants, even in water content conditions which for the mutant were sufficient for pollen germination. Therefore, an additional distinctive phenotypic trait of arabinogalactan proteins AGP6 and AGP11 may be to avert untimely germination of pollen. Such AGPs may control germination through water uptake, suggesting an important biological function of this gene family in pollen.
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Acknowledgments
This work was funded by FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal) within the project PTDC/AGR-GPL/67971/2006. Confocal microscopy was done in the advanced light microscopy unit of IBMC (Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology).
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Communicated by Hugh Dickinson.
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Animated tilt series of confocal fluorescence images showing precociously germinated pollen in the anther of an agp6 agp11 mutant plant grown in 85% relative humidity chamber. Callose in pollen tubes is labeled with decolorized aniline blue
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Coimbra, S., Costa, M., Mendes, M.A. et al. Early germination of Arabidopsis pollen in a double null mutant for the arabinogalactan protein genes AGP6 and AGP11 . Sex Plant Reprod 23, 199–205 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00497-010-0136-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00497-010-0136-x