The low molecular weight fraction of compounds released from immature wheat pistils supports barley pollen embryogenesis.

ABSTRACT: Pollen embryogenesis provides a useful means of generating haploid plants for plant breeding and basic research. Although it is well-established that the efficacy of the process can be enhanced by the provision of immature pistils as a nurse tissue, the origin and compound class of the signal molecule(s) involved is still elusive. Here, a micro-culture system was established to enable the culturing of populations of barley pollen at a density too low to allow unaided embryogenesis to occur, and this was then exploited to assess the effect of using various parts of the pistil as nurse tissue. A five-fold increase in the number of embryogenic calli formed was obtained by simply cutting the pistils in half. The effectiveness of the pistil-conditioned medium was transitory, since it needed rep

SUBMITTER: Lippmann R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4493395 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature