Defensin-like Polypeptide LUREs Are Pollen Tube Attractants Secreted from Synergid Cells

Overview

Journal Nature

Specialty Science

Date 2009 Mar 20

PMID 19295610

Citations 257

Authors

Satohiro Okuda

Hiroki Tsutsui

Keiko Shiina

Stefanie Sprunck

Hidenori Takeuchi

Ryoko Yui

Ryushiro D Kasahara

Yuki Hamamura

Akane Mizukami

Daichi Susaki

Nao Kawano

Takashi Sakakibara

Shoko Namiki

Kie Itoh

Kurataka Otsuka

Motomichi Matsuzaki

Hisayoshi Nozaki

Tsuneyoshi Kuroiwa

Akihiko Nakano

Masahiro M Kanaoka

Thomas Dresselhaus

Narie Sasaki

Tetsuya Higashiyama

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

For more than 140 years, pollen tube guidance in flowering plants has been thought to be mediated by chemoattractants derived from target ovules. However, there has been no convincing evidence of any particular molecule being the true attractant that actually controls the navigation of pollen tubes towards ovules. Emerging data indicate that two synergid cells on the side of the egg cell emit a diffusible, species-specific signal to attract the pollen tube at the last step of pollen tube guidance. Here we report that secreted, cysteine-rich polypeptides (CRPs) in a subgroup of defensin-like proteins are attractants derived from the synergid cells. We isolated synergid cells of Torenia fournieri, a unique plant with a protruding embryo sac, to identify transcripts encoding secreted proteins as candidate molecules for the chemoattractant(s). We found two CRPs, abundantly and predominantly expressed in the synergid cell, which are secreted to the surface of the egg apparatus. Moreover, they showed activity in vitro to attract competent pollen tubes of their own species and were named as LUREs. Injection of morpholino antisense oligomers against the LUREs impaired pollen tube attraction, supporting the finding that LUREs are the attractants derived from the synergid cells of T. fournieri.

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