Adhesion and Guidance in Pollination

Lord 0420445授粉中的粘附和指导该项目涉及植物繁殖。植物通过受精产生种子（精子和卵子融合形成受精卵，然后形成胚胎）。开花植物生产我们所有的农作物，包括食物和纤维，具有复杂的生殖机制，其中涉及花朵雌性组织（雌蕊）中精子携带结构（花粉管）的粘附和引导。人们对这个繁殖阶段知之甚少，因为必须穿过雌蕊中的许多导柱，才能将精子细胞输送到位于卵巢深处的卵子。最近，在复活节百合的雌蕊入口处发现了一种蛋白质，它能够将正在生长的花粉管尖端引导到通往卵巢中卵细胞的正确轨道上。它与另一种蛋白质相互作用，该蛋白质参与花粉管在花柱中的粘附和引导，即进入卵巢的入口。了解雌蕊中的这些蛋白质如何与花粉管相互作用以引导其生长到卵子是本研究的重点。这是在植物中发现的第一个此类趋化肽（小蛋白质）。令人惊讶的是，人类生殖途径中引导精子细胞到达卵子的类似化学引诱剂仍然未知，但在一种脊椎动物物种（青蛙）中，精子化学引诱剂的身份是已知的，而且它也是一种小蛋白质。生物化学（使用百合）、分子遗传学（使用拟南芥）和定位研究将用于研究这种相互作用，从而更好地了解开花植物受精。研究结果对于农作物和花卉产业的育种计划具有重要意义。

Lord 0420445Adhesion and Guidance in PollinationThis project concerns plant reproduction. Plants produce seed by fertilization (the fusion of sperm and egg to form a zygote and then an embryo). Flowering plants, which produce all our crops, both food and fiber, have complex reproductive mechanisms which involve adhesion and guidance of the sperm carrying structure, the pollen tube, in the female tissues (pistil) of the flower. Little is known about this phase of reproduction when many guide posts must be traversed in the pistil in order for the sperm cells to be delivered to the egg which resides deep inside the ovary. Recently, a protein has been discovered at the entrance to the pistil in the Easter Lily, which is capable of directing the growing pollen tube tip onto the proper track to the egg cell in the ovary. It acts with another protein that is involved in adhesion and guidance of the pollen tube in the style, the entrance into the ovary. Understanding how these proteins from the pistil interact with the pollen tube to guide its growth to the egg is the focus of this investigation. This is the first such chemotropic peptide (small protein) discovered in plants. Surprisingly, the analogous chemo-attractants in the human reproductive track that guide sperm cells to the egg remain unknown, but in one vertebrate species, the frog, the identity of the sperm chemo-attractant is known and it is also a small protein. Biochemical (using Lily), molecular genetic(using Arabidopsis) and localization studies will be used to study this interaction and thereby gain a better understanding of flowering plant fertilization. The results will be of importance to breeding programs for both crop plants and for the flower industry.