Arabidopsis thaliana POLLEN TIPS INVOLVED IN POLLEN TUBE ELONGATION

SOTO GC; FOX R; ALLEVA K; MAZZELLA MA; AMODEO G; MUSCHIETTI J

Tucuman

Congreso; SAIB; 2009

Reproduction in flowering plants includes processes, like pollengermination and pollen tube elongation, where water and/ or solutesmovements must be finely regulated. These regulations suggest theparticipation of aquaporins mediating water and solutes transport.AtTIP5;1 and AtTIP1;3 are the only aquaporins that are selectivelyand highly expressed in Arabidopsis thaliana mature pollen.In a heterologous system (Xenopus oocytes), both TIPs showed ureaand water transport but neither glycerol nor boric acid (Soto, FEBSLett. 2008, 582). We found that tip1;3 and tip5;1 homozygousmutant plants showed significantly reduced pollen tube lengthunder nitrogen starvation. This data suggests that AtTIP1;3 andAtTIP5;1 are involved in nitrogen metabolism during pollen tubeelongation.To understand the specific role of both TIPs, we generatedtransgenic plants that overexpress GFP-AtTIP5;1 and GFPAtTIP1;3 fusion proteins studying their subcellular localization.PL-P64.