GSE175392
Naa50 regulates tapetum degradation
N-terminal acetylation of proteins is a key modification in eukaryotes; however, our understanding of its biological function in plants is limited. Naa50 is the catalytic subunit of the protein N-terminal acetyltransferase NatE complex. We previously showed that the absence of Naa50 led to sterility in Arabidopsis thaliana. In the present study, we show that a lack of Naa50 in Arabidopsis resulted in collapsed and sterile pollen grains. Further study revealed that the mutation of Naa50 accelerated programmed cell death in the tapetum. Expression pattern analysis showed that Naa50 was specifically expressed in tapetal cells from anthers at stages 9–11 of pollen development, when tapetal programmed cell death occurs. Reciprocal cross analyses indicated that the male sterility of naa50 plants was due to sporophytic effects. Transcriptome sequencing of closed buds showed that the deletion of Naa50 resulted in up-regulation of the cysteine protease-coding gene CEP1 and impaired the expression of several genes that function in pollen wall deposition and pollen mitosis. Our findings suggest that Naa50 regulates cell degradation in the tapetum during anther development and plays an important role in pollen development by affecting several pathways. Overall design: There were six samples in total. Wild-type and naa50-1 have three biological replicates each.