scholarly journals Novel Metrics to Characterize In Vitro Pollen Tube Growth Performance of Apple Cultivars

Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 1460
Author(s):  
Stefan Roeder ◽  
Sara Serra ◽  
Stefano Musacchi

In vitro germination assays are frequently used in screening trials to evaluate the pollen viability of pollinizers. To be effective, screening trials must have defined threshold criteria, from which individuals can then be assessed. However, despite decades of research on pollen viability, no established threshold is available to categorize apple cultivars based on their in vitro pollen tube lengths. This study aimed to identify and characterize the subgroups of cultivars based on their pollen tube growth performance. In vitro pollen tube lengths of 41 individuals were determined by incubating samples on artificial germination media at 15 and 25 °C. A six-number summary statistic was calculated, and hierarchical clustering on principal component (HCPC) analysis was used to determine and characterize subgroups. Furthermore, a decision tree model was used to predict class membership for future datasets. HCPC analysis partitioned the 41 individuals into three subgroups with different performances. The decision tree quickly predicted the cluster membership based on the second quartile at 15 °C and the third quartile at 25 °C. The thresholds from the decision tree can be used to characterize new observations. The use of the methods will be demonstrated using a case study with 29 apple accessions.

HortScience ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 425-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory A. Lang ◽  
E. James Parrie

Pollen from six southern highbush blueberry cultivars derived from Vaccinium corymbosum L. and one or more other species (V. darrowi Camp, V. ashei Reade, and V. angustifolium Aiton) was incubated on nutrient agar to determine tetrad viability, pollen tube growth rates, and incidence of multiple pollen tube germinations. `Avonblue' pollen had a significantly lower tetrad germination percentage than `Georgiagem', `Flordablue', `Sharpblue', `Gulfcoast', or `O'Neal', all of which had >90% viable tetrads. The in vitro growth rate of `O'Neal' pollen tubes was significantly higher than the growth rates of `Sharpblue' and `Georgiagem pollen tubes. Of those tetrads that were viable, more than two pollen tubes germinated from 83% and 91% of the `Gulfcoast' and `Sharpblue' tetrads, respectively, while only 11% of the `Flordablue' tetrads produced more than two pollen tubes. The total number of pollen tubes germinated per 100 tetrads ranged from 157 (`Flordablue') to 324 (`Sharpblue'), resulting in actual pollen grain viabilities ranging from 39% to 81%. Genetic differences in pollen vigor, as indicated by pollen viability, pollen tube growth rates, and multiple pollen tube germinations, may influence blueberry growers' success in optimizing the beneficial effects of cross-pollination on fruit development.


HortScience ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 1000-1005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alisha L. Ruple ◽  
John R. Clark ◽  
M. Elena Garcia

Floral fertility of five primocane-fruiting (PF) blackberry (Rubus L. subgenus Rubus Watson) genotypes (‘Prime-Jim’®, APF-31, ‘Prime-Ark® 45’, APF-59, and APF-77) and three floricane-fruiting (FF) genotypes (‘Navaho’, ‘Natchez’, and ‘Ouachita’) were tested under field conditions using floricane flowers with four pollination treatments: undisturbed open-pollinated, emasculated self-pollinated, emasculated and cross-pollinated with pollen from a similar fruiting type (PF × PF or FF × FF), and emasculated and cross-pollinated with pollen from a different fruiting type (PF × FF or FF × PF). During primocane flowering, three pollination treatments (undisturbed open-pollinated, emasculated selfed, and emasculated cross-pollinated) were used to further test the fertility of the five PF genotypes. Significant differences between cross-pollination treatments and self-pollination were seldom noted with more differences seen in ‘Prime-Jim’® than any other genotype. Cross-pollinating primocane flowers on ‘Prime-Jim’® resulted in significantly higher fruit set, drupelet set, and average berry weight compared with self-pollination. Fruit set among genotypes ranged from 68.5 to 96.7%, and drupelet set rating ranged from 4.3 to 6.9 for floricane flowers. For open-pollinated primocane flowers, fruit set ranged from 63.9 to 92.1%, and drupelet set rating ranged from 4.3 to 7.2. The genotypes APF-31, APF-59, and APF-77 showed a marked improvement over ‘Prime-Jim’® in both percent fruit set and drupelet set of floricane and primocane flowers. The results indicated that fertility appears to be sufficient in all the genotypes evaluated and that the later-generation PF genotypes show improvement in fertility over ‘Prime-Jim’®. Pollen viability (using both chemical viability testing and in vitro germination testing), stigma receptivity, and pollen tube growth (using florescence) were evaluated in a controlled environment to determine if any improvements could be noticed when comparing a selection of later-generation PF genotypes (APF-31,' Prime-Ark® 45', APF-59, and APF-77) with ‘Prime-Jim’® and ‘Prime-Jan’®. Genotypes APF-31, APF-59, and APF-77 had significantly more viable pollen and pollen germination than ‘Prime-Jan’®. Stigma receptivity was observed in all genotypes. Pollen tube growth did not appear to be inhibited after self-pollination in any genotype studied, although significantly greater florescence resulting from pollen tube growth was seen after cross-pollination compared with self-pollination for APF-59. There were no significant differences in pollen tube growth between cross- and self-pollination for any other genotype.


1992 ◽  
Vol 117 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aref A. Abdul-Baki

A procedure is described for determining pollen viability in tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) by growing pollen in a growth medium containing 0.29 M sucrose, 1.27 mm Ca(NO3)2, 0.16 mm H3 BO3, and 1 mm KNO3 (pH 5.2) to which 0.001% fluorescein diacetate (FDA) was added. Pollen viability can be evaluated within 30 min by determining percent fluorescing pollen in a sample. The procedure further allows the determination of percent germination in vitro and pollen tube growth within 1.5 hours. Neither the germination medium nor FDA has any adverse effects on germination and pollen tube growth. Percent fluorescent pollen and percent total pollen germination were highly correlated, suggesting that fluorescence is a good measure of pollen viability. The combined fluorescence-germination procedure is simple and adapted to routine screening of many samples.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Biying Dong ◽  
Qing Yang ◽  
Zhihua Song ◽  
Lili Niu ◽  
Hongyan Cao ◽  
...  

AbstractMature pollen germinates rapidly on the stigma, extending its pollen tube to deliver sperm cells to the ovule for fertilization. The success of this process is an important factor that limits output. The flavonoid content increased significantly during pollen germination and pollen tube growth, which suggests it may play an important role in these processes. However, the specific mechanism of this involvement has been little researched. Our previous research found that hyperoside can prolong the flowering period of Abelmoschus esculentus (okra), but its specific mechanism is still unclear. Therefore, in this study, we focused on the effect of hyperoside in regulating the actin-depolymerizing factor (ADF), which further affects the germination and growth of pollen. We found that hyperoside can prolong the effective pollination period of okra by 2–3-fold and promote the growth of pollen tubes in the style. Then, we used Nicotiana benthamiana cells as a research system and found that hyperoside accelerates the depolymerization of intercellular microfilaments. Hyperoside can promote pollen germination and pollen tube elongation in vitro. Moreover, AeADF1 was identified out of all AeADF genes as being highly expressed in pollen tubes in response to hyperoside. In addition, hyperoside promoted AeADF1-mediated microfilament dissipation according to microfilament severing experiments in vitro. In the pollen tube, the gene expression of AeADF1 was reduced to 1/5 by oligonucleotide transfection. The decrease in the expression level of AeADF1 partially reduced the promoting effect of hyperoside on pollen germination and pollen tube growth. This research provides new research directions for flavonoids in reproductive development.


1989 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 429 ◽  
Author(s):  
BM Potts ◽  
JB Marsden-Smedley

The effect of boric acid (0-450 ppm) and sucrose (0-40%) on pollen germination and pollen tube growth in Eucalyptus globulus, E. morrisbyi, E. ovata and E. tirnigera was examined in vitro. Over the con- centrations tested, sucrose had by far the largest effect upon both pollen germination and tube lengths. The optimum sucrose concentration for pollen germination (30%) and pollen tube growth (20%) differed markedly with very little (<lo%) germination occurring in the absence of sucrose. The interaction of sucrose and boric acid was significant. However, in general both pollen germination and pollen tube growth were increased by the addition of up to 100 ppm boric acid, but above this level the response plateauxed. The four species differed significantly in their pattern of response to both boric acid and sucrose and the predicted optima derived from analysis of response surfaces differed between species. The predicted sucrose concentration for optimal germination and growth of E. urnigera pollen was consistently less than the other species and in terms of the optimal level of boric acid for pollen tube growth species can be ranked in the order E. globulus > E. ovata > E. morrisbyi = E. urnigera. Pollen germination and tube growth of all four species on a medium comprising 20% sucrose and 200 ppm boric acid would not differ significantly from the observed maximum response of each species and this could suffice as a generalised medium. However, if only percentage germination is to be assessed 30% sucrose would be preferable. It is argued that subtle interspecific differences in optimal in vitro con- ditions for pollen germination and pollen tube growth are likely to reflect differences in pollen physiology which in vivo may have important implications for the success of hybridisation where pollen competition occurs.


Author(s):  
Laetitia Poidevin ◽  
Javier Forment ◽  
Dilek Unal ◽  
Alejandro Ferrando

ABSTRACTPlant reproduction is one key biological process very sensitive to heat stress and, as a consequence, enhanced global warming poses serious threats to food security worldwide. In this work we have used a high-resolution ribosome profiling technology to study how heat affects both the transcriptome and the translatome of Arabidopsis thaliana pollen germinated in vitro. Overall, a high correlation between transcriptional and translational responses to high temperature was found, but specific regulations at the translational level were also present. We show that bona fide heat shock genes are induced by high temperature indicating that in vitro germinated pollen is a suitable system to understand the molecular basis of heat responses. Concurrently heat induced significant down-regulation of key membrane transporters required for pollen tube growth, thus uncovering heat-sensitive targets. We also found that a large subset of the heat-repressed transporters is specifically up-regulated, in a coordinated manner, with canonical heat-shock genes in pollen tubes grown in vitro and semi in vivo, based on published transcriptomes from Arabidopsis thaliana. Ribosome footprints were also detected in gene sequences annotated as non-coding, highlighting the potential for novel translatable genes and translational dynamics.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 449-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunlong Li ◽  
Dong Meng ◽  
Miguel A. Piñeros ◽  
Yuxin Mao ◽  
Abhaya M. Dandekar ◽  
...  

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