Arabinogalactan proteins mediate intercellular crosstalk in the ovule of apple flowers

41 Pags.- 11 Figs. The definitive version is available at: https://link.springer.com/journal/497.

Glycoproteins are significant players in the dialog that takes place between growing pollen tubes and the stigma and style in the angiosperms. Yet, information is scarce on their possible involvement in the ovule, a sporophytic organ that hosts the female gametophyte. Apple flowers have a prolonged lapse of time between pollination and fertilization, offering a great system to study the developmental basis of glycoprotein secretion and their putative role during the last stages of the progamic phase and early seed initiation. For this purpose, the sequential pollen tube elongation within the ovary was examined in relation to changes in arabinogalactan proteins (AGPs) in the tissues of the ovule before and after fertilization. To evaluate what of these changes are developmentally regulated, unpollinated and pollinated flowers were compared. AGPs paved the pollen tube pathway in the ovules along the micropylar canal, and the nucellus entrance toward the synergids, which also developmentally accumulated AGPs at the filiform apparatus. Glycoproteins vanished from all these tissues following pollen tube passage, strongly suggesting a role in pollen–ovule interaction. In addition, AGPs marked the primary cell walls of the haploid cells of the female gametophyte, and they further built up in the cell walls of the embryo sac and developing embryo, layering the interactive walls of the three generations hosted in the ovule, the maternal sporophytic tissues, the female gametophyte, and the developing embryo.

This work was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN)-FEDER [AGL2006-13529-C02-01, AGL 12621-C02-01, AGL 2012–40239] and Gobierno de Aragón [group A43]. JIM antibodies distribution was partly supported by NSF grants [DBI-0421683, RCN 009281]. JML was supported by a FPI fellowship [BES-2007-16059] from MICINN.

Peer reviewed