Screening Of Reproductive Mutants In Arabidopsis Thaliana

Studying the molecular mechanisms of reproductive development of Arabidopsis is always the theme of plant biology, by which to demonstrate the important physiological processes and the corresponding molecular mechanisms of reproductive organ formation, male and female gametophyte development, double fertilization, and zygotic embryo formation and development in higher plants. Recently, researchers have found some genes regulating these processes. For example, receptor kinases SERKs control development of Arabidopsis anther, ovule and embryo although the signaling pathway controlling ovule development is still unknown. To isolate and reveal the functions of new components in the signaling pathway mediated by SERKs, cDNA libraries of Arabidopsis ovules and heart-shaped embryos were constructed to perform large scale genetic mutant screening.An antisense RNA library was constructed by using Arabidopsis FGl ovules to transform serk2serk3double mutant plants for genetic screening. We have already obtained13mutants with stable phenotypes dissected preliminarily by phenotypic observation, ovule clearing, pollen staining and microscopic examination. Although some mutants display abnormal vegetative growth, most of them show decreased fertility, including6mutants with male gametophyte sterility,4mutants with female gametophyte sterility, and1mutant with abnormal embryo development. Studying of these mutants may further reveal the molecular mechanisms regulating ovule and embryo development by SERKs-mediated signaling pathway.