油茶是我国重要的木本食用油料树种，在当前促进山区精准脱贫中具有重要战略地位。申请人前期在调研中首次发现，油茶产区主栽的国审品种‘华硕’中存在花药显著变异、瓣化现象严重的雄性不育突变株“HB-21”，立即无性扩繁并保存了该珍贵的雄性不育材料。申请人初步研究发现该雄性不育油茶花药严重瓣化，成熟时不能产生功能花粉，明显不同于正常花药。本项目拟在前期对油茶可育花药持续开展大量研究的基础上，应用组织切片（石蜡、半薄和超薄切片）、光学显微技术、电子显微技术和组织化学定位等手段，比较研究油茶雄性不育和可育花药发育过程中各阶段的变化特点和规律，并将这些规律与同期细胞中的生理代谢物质（钙、多糖、脂类和蛋白质）关联分析，以期阐明雄性不育花药发生瓣化败育的时期、部位和原因，从而揭示雄性不育的细胞学机理。本项目不仅可为解析油茶雄性不育的分子机制奠定前期基础，而且在雄性不育品种选育、杂交育种等研究中也具有重要意义。

Camellia oleifera is an important woody edible oil tree species in China, and it plays an important role in promoting the accurate elimination of poverty in mountainous areas. In the early stage of the research, it was found that a mutant of C. oleifera ‘Hua shuo’ (designated HB-21) contains significant variation and petalization of its anthers that resulted in severe male sterility for the first time . Many of these valuable male-sterile C. oleifera trees are now asexually propagated and preserved. In preliminarily studies, we found that the anthers ofthese male-sterile C. oleifera flowers had severe petalization, could not producefunctional pollen at maturity, and were clearly different from normal anthers. The preliminary stage of this project intends to use as a foundation the large amountof research on normal, fertile C. oleifera anthers and use tissue sections (including paraffin, semithin, and ultrathin sections), optical microscopy, electron microscopy, histochemical localization, and other procedures to conduct a comparative study onthe differences and properties of each stage of the development of male-sterile and normal C. oleifera anthers. In addition, correlation analysis of these observations with the physiological and metabolic substances (Ca2+, polysaccharides, lipids, and proteins) produced during the same time will be performed in order to elucidate the causes of petalization and abortion in male-sterile anthers and thus revealing the cellular mechanism of male sterility in C. oleifera. This project will not only lay the foundation for the study of molecular biology of male sterility in C. oleifera, but is also highly significant for research on C. oleifera breeding of new male-sterile varieties, cross breeding, and other relevant topics.