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A lectin receptor-like kinase is required for pollen development in Arabidopsis

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Abstract

Lectin receptor-like kinases (Lectin RLKs) are a large family of receptor-like kinases with an extracellular legume lectin-like domain. There are approximately 45 such receptor kinases in Arabidopsis thaliana. Surprisingly, although receptor-like kinases in general are well investigated in Arabidopsis, relatively little is known about the functions of members of the Lectin RLK family. A number of studies implicated members of this family in various functions, such as disease resistance, stress responses, hormone signaling, and legume–rhizobium symbiosis. Our current work demonstrated that mutation in one Lectin RLK gene led to male sterility in Arabidopsis. The sterility was due to defects in pollen development. Pollen development proceeded normally in the mutant until anther stage 8. After that, all pollen grains deformed and collapsed. Mature pollen grains were much smaller than wild-type pollen grains, glued together, and totally collapsed. Therefore, the mutant was named sgc, standing for small, glued-together, and collapsed pollen mutant. The mutant phenotype appeared to be caused by an unidentified sporophytic defect due to the mutation. As revealed by analysis of the promoter-GUS transgenic plants and the gene expression analysis using RT-PCR, the gene showed an interesting temporal and spatial expression pattern: it had no or a low expression in young flowers (roughly before anther stage 6), reached a maximum level around stages 6–7, and then declined gradually to a very low level in young siliques. No expression was detected in microspores or pollen. Together, our data demonstrated that SGC Lectin RLK plays a critical role in pollen development.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Syngenta Corporation for the T-DNA insertion mutant Garlic_640_F09, and the Salk Institute Genomic Analysis Laboratory and ABRC for the insertion mutants of other Lectin RLK genes. The work was funded by a grant to G. Stacey from the US Department of Energy, Energy Biosciences Program, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Grant No. DE-FG02-02ER15309).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Center for Soybean Biotechnology, Divisions of Plant Sciences and Biochemistry, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    Jinrong Wan, Ami Patel, Melanie Mathieu, Sung-Yong Kim & Gary Stacey

  2. Digital Biology Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    Dong Xu

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  1. Jinrong Wan
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  2. Ami Patel
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  3. Melanie Mathieu
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  4. Sung-Yong Kim
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  5. Dong Xu
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  6. Gary Stacey
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Correspondence to Jinrong Wan.

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Wan, J., Patel, A., Mathieu, M. et al. A lectin receptor-like kinase is required for pollen development in Arabidopsis. Plant Mol Biol 67, 469–482 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-008-9332-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-008-9332-6

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