Pollination Type Recognition from a Distance by the Ovary Is Revealed Through a Global Transcriptomic Analysis

Abstract

Sexual reproduction in flowering plants involves intimate contact and continuous interactions between the growing pollen tube and the female reproductive structures. These interactions can trigger responses in distal regions of the flower well ahead of fertilization. While pollination-induced petal senescence has been studied extensively, less is known about how pollination is perceived at a distance in the ovary, and how specific this response is to various pollen genotypes. To address this question, we performed a global transcriptomic analysis in the ovary of a wild potato species, Solanum chacoense, at various time points following compatible, incompatible, and heterospecific pollinations. In all cases, pollen tube penetration in the stigma was initially perceived as a wounding aggression. Then, as the pollen tubes grew in the style, a growing number of genes became specific to each pollen genotype. Functional classification analyses revealed sharp differences in the response to compatible and heterospecific pollinations. For instance, the former induced reactive oxygen species (ROS)-related genes while the latter affected genes associated to ethylene signaling. In contrast, incompatible pollination remained more akin to a wound response. Our analysis reveals that every pollination type produces a specific molecular signature generating diversified and specific responses at a distance in the ovary in preparation for fertilization.

TCMP‐2 affects tomato flowering and interacts with BBX16, a homolog of the arabidopsis B‐box MiP1b

“…Secreted signaling peptides can be divided into two major categories: small post-translationally modified peptides and Cys-rich peptides (CRPs), containing typically 6-8 Cys residues forming intramolecular disulfide bonds (Matsubayashi & Sakagami, 2006). Plant peptides act at different levels during reproductive development; for instance, some CRPs expressed specifically in flowers, control the communication between male and female reproductive organs and gametic cells during fertilization (Dresselhaus & Franklin-Tong, 2013;Ingram & Gutierrez-Marcos, 2015;Joly et al, 2019;Pease et al, 2016;Qu et al, 2015). Recently, some CRP peptides/miniproteins, i.e.…”

The influence of the pollination compatibility type on the pistil S-RNase expression in European pear (Pyrus communis)

“…These factors are established by the continuous signal exchanges occurring between the growing pollen tubes and the style. Some examples of such signals include the chemo-attractants produced by the ovule that serve as guidance cues for the pollen tube, alterations in the metabolic status of the stylar transmitting tract in response to pollen tube germination and growth, and pollination-induced pistil aging and ovule maturation ( Dresselhaus and Franklin-tong, 2013 ; Lora et al, 2016 ; Joly et al, 2019 ; Mandrone et al, 2019 ). Self-incompatibility is another important type of pollen-style interaction.…”