Plant love, an -omics tale

Title: Plant love, an -omics tale

Speaker: Prof. Dr. David Honys

Affiliation: Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

Host: Jörg Becker

Abstract: Reproduction success in angiosperm plants depends on robust pollen tube growth through the female pistil tissues to ensure successful fertilization. There, cell–cell communication plays a pivotal role in male–female recognition during plant sexual reproduction. Proteins and peptides secreted from the female reproductive tissues, often as a response to male gametophyte-secreted proteins and peptides, guide pollen tubes towards ovules for fertilization. Recently, we demonstrated the role of pre-mRNA splicing on the synthesis of the male chemo-attractants including cysteine-rich proteins (CRPs) secreted from the embryo sac and perceived by pollen tube receptor-like kinases. On the male side, this molecular dialog is facilitated by pollen tube secretome identified by the genome-wide study of pollen tube-secreted proteins with potential functions in pollen tube guidance towards ovules for sexual reproduction. Their functional analysis highlighted a potential mechanism for unconventional secretion of pollen tube proteins and revealed likely regulators of conventional pollen tube protein secretion. The association of pollen tube-secreted proteins with marker proteins shown to be secreted via exosomes in other species suggests exosome secretion is a possible mechanism for cell–cell communication between the pollen tube and female reproductive cells.