Dataset Information

The long pollen tube journey and in vitro pollen germination of Phalaenopsis orchids.

ABSTRACT: Pollen biology in P. aphrodite. Orchids have a distinct reproductive program. Pollination triggers ovule development and differentiation within flowers, and fertilization occurs days to months after pollination. It is unclear how pollen tubes travel through the developing ovaries during ovule development and when pollen tubes arrive at the mature embryo sac to achieve fertilization. Here, we report a robust staining protocol to image and record the timing of pollen germination, progressive growth of pollen tubes in ovaries, and arrival of pollen tubes at embryo sacs in Phalaenopsis aphrodite. The pollen germinated and pollen tubes entered the ovary 3 days after pollination. Pollen tubes continued to grow and filled the entire cavity of the ovary as the ovary elongated and ovules developed. Pollen tubes were found to enter the matured embryo sacs at approximately 60-65 days after pollination in an acropetal manner. Moreover, these temporal changes in developmental events such as growth of pollen tubes and fertilization were associated with expression of molecular markers. In addition, we developed an in vitro pollen germination protocol, which is valuable to enable studies on pollen tube guidance and tip growth regulation in Phalaenopsis orchids and possibly in other orchid species.

SUBMITTER: Chen JC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4909812 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The long pollen tube journey and in vitro pollen germination of Phalaenopsis orchids.

Chen Jhun-Chen JC Fang Su-Chiung SC

Plant reproduction 20160325 1-2

<h4>Key message</h4>Pollen biology in P. aphrodite. Orchids have a distinct reproductive program. Pollination triggers ovule development and differentiation within flowers, and fertilization occurs days to months after pollination. It is unclear how pollen tubes travel through the developing ovaries during ovule development and when pollen tubes arrive at the mature embryo sac to achieve fertilization. Here, we report a robust staining protocol to image and record the timing of pollen germinatio ...[more]

PMID: 27016359

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Project description:BackgroundTransposable elements (TEs) are fragments of DNA that can insert into new chromosomal locations. They represent a great proportion of eukaryotic genomes. The identification and characterization of TEs facilitates understanding the transpositional activity of TEs with their effects on the orchid genome structure.ResultsWe combined the draft whole-genome sequences of Phalaenopsis equestris with BAC end sequences, Roche 454, and Illumina/Solexa, and identified long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons in these genome sequences by using LTRfinder and classified by using Gepard software. Among the 10 families Gypsy-like retrotransposons, three families Gypsy1, Gypsy2, and Gypsy3, contained the most copies among these predicted elements. In addition, six high-copy retrotransposons were identified according to their reads in the sequenced raw data. The 12-kb Orchid-rt1 contains 18,000 copies representing 220 Mbp of the P. equestris genome. Southern blot and slot blot assays showed that these four retrotransposons Gypsy1, Gypsy2, Gypsy3, and Orchid-rt1 contained high copies in the large-genome-size/large-chromosome species P. violacea and P. bellina. Both Orchid-rt1 and Gypsy1 displayed various ratios of copy number for the LTR sequences versus coding sequences among four Phalaenopsis species, including P. violacea and P. bellina and small-genome-size/small-chromosome P. equestris and P. ahprodite subsp. formosana, which suggests that Orchid-rt1 and Gypsy1 have been through various mutations and homologous recombination events. FISH results showed amplification of Orchid-rt1 in the euchromatin regions among the four Phalaenopsis species. The expression levels of Peq018599 encoding copper transporter 1 is highly upregulated with the insertion of Orchid-rt1, while it is down regulated for Peq009948 and Peq014239 encoding for a 26S proteasome non-ATP regulatory subunit 4 homolog and auxin-responsive factor AUX/IAA-related. In addition, insertion of Orchid-rt1 in these three genes are all in their intron regions.ConclusionOrchid-rt1 and Gypsy1-3 have amplified within Phalaenopsis orchids concomitant with the expanded genome sizes, and Orchid-rt1 and Gypsy1 may have gone through various mutations and homologous recombination events. Insertion of Orchid-rt1 is in the introns and affects gene expression levels.

Project description:Pollen germination, along with pollen tube growth, is an essential process for the reproduction of flowering plants. The germinating pollen with tip-growth characteristics provides an ideal model system for the study of cell growth and morphogenesis. As an essential step towards a detailed understanding of this important process, the objective of this study was to comprehensively analyze the transcriptome changes during pollen germination and pollen tube growth. Using Affymetrix Arabidopsis ATH1 Genome Arrays, this study is the first to show the changes in the transcriptome from desiccated mature pollen grains to hydrated pollen grains and then to pollen tubes of Arabidopsis thaliana. The number of expressed genes, either for total expressed genes or for specifically expressed genes, increased significantly from desiccated mature pollen to hydrated pollen and again to growing pollen tubes, which is consistent with the finding that pollen germination and tube growth was significantly inhibited in vitro by a transcriptional inhibitor. The results of GO analyses showed that expression of genes related to cell rescue, transcription, signal transduction and cellular transport were significantly changed, especially for up-regulation, during pollen germination and tube growth, respectively. In particular, genes of the CaM/CML, CHX and Hsp families showed the most significant changes during pollen germination and tube growth. These results demonstrate that the overall transcription of genes, both in the number of expressed genes and in the levels of transcription, was increased. Furthermore, the appearance of many novel transcripts during pollen germination as well as tube growth indicates that these newly expressed genes may function in this complex process. SUBMITTER_CITATION: Yi Wang, Wen-Zheng Zhang, Lian-Fen Song, Jun-Jie Zou, Zhen Su, and Wei-Hua Wu. Transcriptome analyses show changes in gene expression to accompany pollen germination and tube growth in Arabidopsis. Plant Physiol. September 5, 2008; 10.1104/pp.108.126375 Experiment Overall Design: Three samples are analyzed in this experiment. They are desiccated mature pollen grains (MP), hydrated pollen grains (HP) and growing pollen tubes (PT) of Arabidopsis thaliana, respectively. Each sample has two biological replicates, so that there are 6 data sets of ATH1 array in this experiment.

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The long pollen tube journey and in vitro pollen germination of Phalaenopsis orchids.

Publications

The long pollen tube journey and in vitro pollen germination of Phalaenopsis orchids.

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