Roles of autophagy during male reproductive development in rice

自噬是真核细胞中主要的分解代谢途径之一，通过将细胞质成分和细胞器输送到溶酶体和液泡等降解空间，在蛋白质和代谢物的循环中发挥作用。在许多真核生物中，自噬也被证明对生长和发育是必不可少的。然而，自噬在植物发育过程中的直接参与尚未得到解决。我们在这里分离了一个自噬相关基因缺陷的水稻反转录转座子插入突变体。我们还建立了水稻自噬动力学的体内成像系统，发现突变体中的自噬受到了损害。形态和分子遗传分析表明，自噬在水稻花药发育过程中起着关键作用。

Autophagy, one of the major catabolic pathways in eukaryotic cells, plays roles in recycling of proteins and metabolites by delivering cytoplasmic components and organelles to the degradation compartments such as lysosomes and the vacuole. In many eukaryotes, autophagy has also been shown to be essential for growth and development. However, direct involvement of autophagy during plant developmental process had not yet been addressed. We here isolated a rice retrotransposon-insertional mutant defective in an autophagy-related gene. We also established an in vivo imaging system of the dynamics of autophagy in rice, and found that autophagy is impaired in the mutant. Morphological and molecular genetic analyses suggest that autophagy plays critical roles during anther development in rice.