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A study of the regulation and interactions of MALESTERILITY1 during anther and pollen development in Arabidopsis

Reference	BB/C514190/1
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Zoe Wilson
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Dr Caiyun Yang
Institution	University of Nottingham
Department	Sch of Biosciences
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	328,436
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	01/04/2005
End date	31/07/2008
Duration	40 months

Abstract

Pollen and anther development is a critical phase in the plant life cycle with significant commercial importance for the generation of systems that give reliable control over plant fertility. The Arabidopsis MS1 gene is critical for the production of functional pollen. It is expressed only within the tapetum, from the late tetraspore stage through to pollen mitosis 1. It appears to play a regulatory role associated with tapetal development and pollen wall formation. MS1 has homology to PHD-finger transcription factors. This study will characterise the role that MS1 plays in tapetal and microspore development. We will establish the key domains required for MS1 function by site directed mutagenesis and in planta functional analysis of our MS1:GFP fusion protein. We will identify interacting factors for MS1 using Yeast-2-hybrid screens of an anther specific library and affinity purification strategies. Key genes identified in previous ms1 microarray experiments will be analysed, by expression analysis and the use of knockouts, for their role in pollen development. Additionally we will determine the tapetal transcriptome using Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) to isolate developmentally staged wt Ler tapetal cells for microarray analysis. This data will provide a vital resource to understand the process of tapetal development, but will also be used in comparison with our existing ms1 array data to determine which of our ms1 differentially expressed genes are tapetal specific. It will also be used to aid in a comparative basis in the analysis of putative MS1-interacting factors. This programme of work will establish the role that MS1 plays in tapetal development and determine the nature of the interactions with microspores. This work has future application in the control of crop fertility, selective breeding and the generation of F1 lines, and to the control of gene flow.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Plant & Microbial Sciences (PMS)
Research Topics	Microbiology, Plant Science
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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