title: Signaling in pollen tube growth: crosstalk, feedback, and missing links.
abstract: Pollen tubes elongate rapidly at their tips through highly polarized cell growth known as tip growth. Tip growth requires intensive exocytosis at the tip, which is supported by a dynamic cytoskeleton and vesicle trafficking. Several signaling pathways have been demonstrated to coordinate pollen tube growth by regulating cellular activities such as actin dynamics, exocytosis, and endocytosis. These signaling pathways crosstalk to form a signaling network that coordinates the cellular processes required for tip growth. The homeostasis of key signaling molecules is critical for the proper elongation of the pollen tube tip, and is commonly fine-tuned by positive and negative regulations. In addition to the major signaling pathways, emerging evidence implies the roles of other signals in the regulation of pollen tube growth. Here we review and discuss how these signaling networks modulate the rapid growth of pollen tubes.
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology and Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes of Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China. guanyf@sibs.ac.cn
authors.forename: Yuefeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Guan
authors.forename: Jingzhe
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Zhenbiao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D004705:Endocytosis; D005089:Exocytosis; D025461:Feedback, Physiological; D006706:Homeostasis; D053205:Pollen Tube / Q000166:cytology* / Q000254:growth & development*; D015398:Signal Transduction
keywords: polarity; pollen development; reproductive biology; signal transduction.