The FERONIA Receptor-like Kinase Mediates Male-Female Interactions During Pollen Tube Reception

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1143562
• Publication Date: 2007-08-02T21:08:01Z
• Authors: Juan-Miguel Escob...; Norbert Huck; Sharon Kessler; Valeria Gagliardini; Jacqueline Gheyse...; Wei-Cai Yang; Ueli Grossniklaus
• Keywords: Double fertilization

In flowering plants, signaling between the male pollen tube and synergid cells of female gametophyte is required for fertilization. Arabidopsis thaliana mutant feronia (fer), fertilization impaired; fails to arrest thus continues grow inside gametophyte. FER encodes a synergid-expressed, plasma membrane-localized receptor-like kinase. We found that protein accumulates asymmetrically in membrane at filiform apparatus. Interspecific crosses using from lyrata Cardamine flexuosa on A. stigmas resulted fer-like phenotype correlates with sequence divergence extracellular domain FER. Our findings show control reception based FER-dependent pathway, which may play role reproductive isolation barriers.