AI Article Synopsis

  • - Plant lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) are crucial for moving lipids between membranes, impacting pollen wall development, including the pollen aperture structure.
  • - The study focuses on a rice mutant called pollen aperture defect 1 (Ospad1), which shows male sterility due to abnormal pollen grain development linked to a non-specific LTP that fails to properly bind lipids.
  • - Researchers found that OsPAD1 interacts with a gene involved in pollen development, providing new insights into how LTPs function in forming pollen apertures, which could have broader implications for other cereal crops.

Article Abstract

Plant lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) are distinguished by their capacity to facilitate lipid transport in vitro between membranes. This includes the transportation of lipid constituents from the tapetum to the microspore, thereby playing a pivotal role in the synthesis and construction of the pollen wall, encompassing the formation of the pollen aperture. However, our understanding of LTPs and their role in pollen aperture formation in rice remains limited. In this study, we have isolated and characterized a male sterile rice mutant named as pollen aperture defect 1 (Ospad1). When compared to the wild type, Ospad1 mutant plants exhibit pollen grain abortion due to the absence of the fibrillar-granular layer, ultimately leading to the leakage of contents from the malformed aperture. OsPAD1 encodes a non-specific LTP and is specifically expressed in the microspore during male development. Subsequently, in vitro lipid binding assays reveal that the recombinant OsPAD1 protein has the capability to bind to a broad spectrum of lipids. The malfunction of OsPAD1 results in disrupted lipid metabolism and compromised pollen aperture, ultimately leading to male sterility. Furthermore, yeast two-hybrid, bimolecular fluorescent complementation and pull-down assays all demonstrate that OsPAD1 can directly interact with OsINP1, an orthologue of a crucial aperture factor in Arabidopsis, together regulating rice aperture development. These findings offer new insights into the molecular mechanisms that underlie the function of LTPs in rice pollen aperture formation. This research holds potential implications not only for rice but also for other cereal crops.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11103-024-01531-zDOI Listing

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