A way to discover a hidden pollen-tube potential controlling directional tipgrowth in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Abstract

The pollen tube is a male reproductive tissue in angiosperms that transports sperm cells to the ovule where double fertilization takes place. It was believed that the nuclei, always present at the apical region of the pollen tube, were responsible for the pollen-tube growth and directional control during its long journey to the ovule. However, we recently showed that pollen tubes could reach the ovule even when de novo transcripts are not supplied to a tip during pollen-tube elongation. This review focuses on recent topics about the directional control of pollen tubes including our research and discusses the importance of these studies for plant reproduction.