Abstract
It is essential for fertilization of angiosperms that a pollen tube grows in a pistil and reaches an embryo sac. There must be various mechanisms that guide pollen tubes to embryo sacs in the fertilization process. However, most of molecules underlying the mechanisms, including pollen tube attractants, are unclear.
Our aim of this study is to identify pollen tube attractants of Arabidopsis thaliana that are likely to be derived from the ovule or, more precisely, the synergid cell. We have identified small proteins as candidates of pollen tube attractants derived from the synergid cell of Torenia fournieri. As previously suggested by physiological experiments using closely relating species, the candidate genes rapidly evolved, which made difficult to search homologs in Arabidopsis by conventional molecular phylogenetic analysis. Here we report our trial to identify candidates of attractants of Arabidopsis, including genetic analyses and semi in vitro assay for several candidates.
