Abstract
Key message
Extended antipodal life-span.
Abstract
The female gametophyte of most flowering plants forms four cell types after cellularization, namely synergid cell, egg cell, central cell and antipodal cell. Of these, only the antipodal cells have no established functions, and it has been proposed that in many plants including Arabidopsis, the antipodal cells undergo programmed cell death during embryo sac maturation and prior to fertilization. Here, we examined the expression of female gametophyte-specific fluorescent reporters in mature embryo sacs of Arabidopsis, and in developing seeds shortly after fertilization. We observed expression of the fluorescence from the reporter genes in the three antipodal cells in the mature stage embryo sac, and continuing through the early syncytial endosperm stages. These observations suggest that rather than undergoing programmed cell death and degenerating at the mature stage of female gametophyte as previously supposed, the antipodal cells in Arabidopsis persist beyond fertilization, even when the other cell types are no longer present. The results support the concept that the Arabidopsis female gametophyte at maturity should be considered to be composed of seven cells and four cell types, rather than the previously prevailing view of four cells and three cell types.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Wei-Cai Yang, Institute of Genetics and Development, for the CDC123::H2B:YFP fusion, to Maruthachalam Ravi for the CENH3::GFP fusion, and to Scott Russell (U. Oklahoma), Marissa Simon and Shai Lawit (Pioneer), and the members of the Sundaresan and Gasser laboratories at the University of California-Davis for helpful comments and suggestions. This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Grant IOS-1051951 to V.S. X.S. was partially supported by the Elsie Taylor Stocking Memorial Research Fellowship.
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Communicated by Weicai Yang.
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Song, X., Yuan, L. & Sundaresan, V. Antipodal cells persist through fertilization in the female gametophyte of Arabidopsis . Plant Reprod 27, 197–203 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00497-014-0251-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00497-014-0251-1