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Variation in pollen formation and its cytological mechanism in an allotriploid white poplar

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Abstract

Variation in pollen formation and its cytological mechanism in an allotriploid white poplar were investigated by the squashed technique and indirect immunofluorescence. Besides 0.5% stuck pollen grains, this allotriploid produced regularly spherical pollen grains. It was estimated that 90.3% of pollen grains were viable. Diameters of the viable spherical pollen grains ranged from 23.2 to 72.9 μm, with a bimodal frequency distribution. Numerous meiotic abnormalities were found, including highly irregular chromosome pairing, lagging chromosomes and chromosome bridges, micronuclei, and multiple spindles, which indicate highly genetic imbalance of this allotriploid. Some micronuclei triggered minispindle formation in metaphase II and participated in cytokinesis to form microcytes in sporads. Abnormal orientation of metaphase II spindles contributed to production of dyads and triads, which produced unreduced microspores. However, parallel orientation of spindles was not necessary for dyad formation, because an organelle band positioned in the equatorial region prevented the spindles from coalescing. Some microsporocytes exhibited a complete or partial absence of cytokinesis, which resulted in the formation of monads and the increased frequency of dyads and triads. The perspective of this triploid in the polyploid breeding program of white poplar is discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Jinfeng Zhang and Dr. Xiangming Pang from Beijing Forestry University and Dr. Paul Kretchmer at San Francisco Edit for revising the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 30671708) and the National Key Technology R&D Programme of the 11th Five-Year Plan of China (Grant No. 2006BAD32B01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, Beijing Forestry University, No.35, Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, 100083, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Jun Wang, Xiangyang Kang & Qi Zhu

  2. Key Laboratory of Genetics and Breeding in Forest Trees and Ornamental Plants, Ministry of Education, Beijing Forestry University, No.35, Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, 100083, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Jun Wang, Xiangyang Kang & Qi Zhu

  3. Beijing Forestry University, No.35, Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, 100083, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Xiangyang Kang

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  1. Jun Wang
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Correspondence to Xiangyang Kang.

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Communicated by W. Boerjan

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Wang, J., Kang, X. & Zhu, Q. Variation in pollen formation and its cytological mechanism in an allotriploid white poplar. Tree Genetics & Genomes 6, 281–290 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-009-0248-3

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