Abstract
Plants are directly and strongly affected by abiotic stresses that relate to water, temperature, light and nutrients. Plant reproductive development is more sensitive to abiotic stresses than vegetative growth. Especially high temperatures cause male sterility due to abortion of anther development in several plant species. We have studied high temperature injury to male reproductive development using barley and Arabidopsis. These previous data indicate that anther tissue-specific auxin reduction is a cause in high temperature injury, which leads to the abortion of pollen development and the short filaments. It has been well known that importance of cross talk and interaction between phytohormones. In this study, we focused the ethylene signaling in developing anther cells and its response to high temperature stress. The ethylene insensitive mutant showed tolerance to increasing temperatures and suppressed the reduction of filaments. Promoter analysis implied some of ACS genes and ERF1 gene constitutively expressed in anther layer cells. These results suggest that high temperature injury to anther development occurs through ethylene signaling.
