Is there more than one way to attract a pollen tube?
ZmEA1 (Zea mays egg apparatus 1) is expressed only in the egg and synergid cells. Embryo sacs with presumed reduced expression of ZmEA1 fail to attract pollen tubes. Together with data from Arabidopsis mutants and from elegant laser ablation experiments in Torenia fournieri, these results indicate that embryo sacs send signals to the incoming pollen tubes. We need to decipher how such signals are perceived and determine if the signals are species-specific.
McCormick
Sheila
S
Plant Gene Expression Center, USDA/ARS-UC-Berkeley, 800 Buchanan St, Albany, CA 94710, USA. sheilamc@nature.berkeley.edu
Yang
Heping
H
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D035264:Flowers / Q000502:physiology*; D017343:Genes, Plant; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000502:physiology; D011058:Pollen / Q000502:physiology*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D015398:Signal Transduction; D003313:Zea mays / Q000502:physiology
D010940:Plant Proteins