title: Signalling pathways in pollen germination and tube growth.
abstract: Signalling is an integral component in the establishment and maintenance of cellular identity. In plants, tip-growing cells represent an ideal system to investigate signal transduction mechanisms, and among these, pollen tubes (PTs) are one of the favourite models. Many signalling pathways have been identified during germination and tip growth, namely, Ca(2+), calmodulin, phosphoinositides, protein kinases, cyclic AMP, and GTPases. These constitute a large and complex web of signalling networks that intersect at various levels such as the control of vesicle targeting and fusion and the physical state of the actin cytoskeleton. Here we discuss some of the most recent advances made in PT signal transduction cascades and their implications for our future research. For reasons of space, emphasis was given to signalling mechanisms that control PT reorientation, so naturally many other relevant works have not been cited.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia Vegetal, Instituto de Ciência Aplicada e Tecnologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal. r.malho@fc.ul.pt
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Malhó
authors.forename: Q
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Monteiro
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rato
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Camacho
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dinis
mesh_terms: D002147:Calmodulin / Q000378:metabolism; D020558:GTP Phosphohydrolases / Q000378:metabolism; D018525:Germination / Q000502:physiology*; D008870:Microtubules / Q000378:metabolism; D011058:Pollen / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D015398:Signal Transduction
chemical_list: D002147:Calmodulin; D020558:GTP Phosphohydrolases