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The Secret Love Life Of Plants: Researchers Discover Signals Between Plant Embryos And Their Endosperm

Date:
December 13, 2005
Source:
Max Planck Society
Summary:
In studies of signals between plant embryos and their endosperm, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and the University of Cologne have isolated a mutant where there is only one single fertilisation. This single fertilisation, which creates an embryo, also triggers the development of endosperm, even when the central cell where endosperm develops is not fertilised.
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A large portion of plant seeds is endosperm. It has the important task of nourishing the plant embryo during the early stages of its development. In flowering plants, there is a complicated double-fertilisation mechanism that arises among embryos and endosperm. They develop together into mature seeds. The exact process, and the communication between the two parts of the seeds, has been unclear to scientists.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and the University of Cologne have, however, isolated a mutant where there is only one single fertilisation. In a recent online edition of the journal Nature Genetics (November 28, 2005) they explain that this single fertilisation, which creates an embryo, also triggers the development of endosperm, even when the central cell where endosperm develops is not fertilised.

The ovules of flowering plants are housed in a carpel. Pollen lands on the flower's stigma and forms a pollen tube. It then uses each one of its two sperm cells to fertilise the egg cell, from which the embryo hatches, and the central cell, where the endosperm grows. This double fertilisation is what is special to all flowering plants.

Scientists in Cologne, working with Arp Schnittger, have found a mutant of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana called cdc2. It has an altered pollen. Because of a failed cell division, the cdc2-plants develop pollen that has only one sperm cell instead of two. The researchers have now been exploring the question if whether, under these conditions, fertilisation is possible at all. It turned out that the mutated pollen can survive and even grow into a female partner. Once it has arrived there, the single sperm cell of the cdc2 pollen merges only with the egg cell and not with the central cell. This shows a hierarchy, never before discovered, in the fertilisation process of Arabidopsis.

The scientists made another astounding observation: although the central cell remained unfertilised, it began to develop endosperm. The researchers deduced that shortly after the egg cell was fertilised, a positive signal was sent out to its environment, which appears to be necessary for normal growth of an endosperm. Because the double fertilisation process can be genetically dissected, the existence of this mutant offers new possibilities to learn about the development of endosperm and the embryo in seeds. In the next few months, the researchers hope above all to find out how exactly the signal functions and what chemical reactions are behind it.

"Explaining the mechanism behind double fertilisation in flowering plants and early seed development is particularly interesting in the context of plant breeding," says Arp Schnittger, "because reproduction without fertilisation would be advantageous for many different kinds of breeding."


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Cite This Page:

Max Planck Society. "The Secret Love Life Of Plants: Researchers Discover Signals Between Plant Embryos And Their Endosperm." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 December 2005. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051213080817.htm>.
Max Planck Society. (2005, December 13). The Secret Love Life Of Plants: Researchers Discover Signals Between Plant Embryos And Their Endosperm. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 3, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051213080817.htm
Max Planck Society. "The Secret Love Life Of Plants: Researchers Discover Signals Between Plant Embryos And Their Endosperm." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051213080817.htm (accessed December 3, 2024).

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