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3. Molecular mechanisms of pollen aperture formation in Arabidopsis and rice

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   Zhou, Yuan; Dobritsa, Anna A (September 2025, Journal of Experimental Botany)

   Melzer, Rainer (Ed.)

   Abstract Apertures are specialized regions on the pollen surface that receive little to no exine deposition, forming distinct structures important for pollen function. Aperture number, shape, and positions vary widely across species, resulting in diverse, species-specific patterns that make apertures fascinating from both cell biological and evolutionary perspectives. Aperture formation requires developing pollen to establish polarity and define specific regions of the plasma membrane as aperture domains. In the decade or so since the discovery of the first aperture factor, INAPERTURATE POLLEN1 (INP1), pollen apertures have become a powerful model for investigating how cells form distinct plasma membrane domains. Recent studies in Arabidopsis and rice, two species with contrasting aperture patterns, have identified key molecular players that regulate aperture domain specification and development. In this review, we summarize these advances and discuss directions for future studies on the molecular mechanisms controlling aperture formation. 

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5. Characterization of novel pollen-expressed transcripts reveals their potential roles in pollen heat stress response in Arabidopsis thaliana

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s00497-020-00400-1  

   Rutley, Nicholas; Poidevin, Laetitia; Doniger, Tirza; Tillett, Richard L.; Rath, Abhishek; Forment, Javier; Luria, Gilad; Schlauch, Karen A.; Ferrando, Alejandro; Harper, Jeffery F.; et al (March 2021, Plant Reproduction)

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   Abstract Key message Arabidopsis pollen transcriptome analysis revealed new intergenic transcripts of unknown function, many of which are long non-coding RNAs, that may function in pollen-specific processes, including the heat stress response. Abstract The male gametophyte is the most heat sensitive of all plant tissues. In recent years, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as important components of cellular regulatory networks involved in most biological processes, including response to stress. While examining RNAseq datasets of developing and germinating Arabidopsis thaliana pollen exposed to heat stress (HS), we identified 66 novel and 246 recently annotated intergenic expressed loci (XLOCs) of unknown function, with the majority encoding lncRNAs. Comparison with HS in cauline leaves and other RNAseq experiments indicated that 74% of the 312 XLOCs are pollen-specific, and at least 42% are HS-responsive. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that 96% of the genes evolved recently in Brassicaceae . We found that 50 genes are putative targets of microRNAs and that 30% of the XLOCs contain small open reading frames (ORFs) with homology to protein sequences. Finally, RNAseq of ribosome-protected RNA fragments together with predictions of periodic footprint of the ribosome P-sites indicated that 23 of these ORFs are likely to be translated. Our findings indicate that many of the 312 unknown genes might be functional and play a significant role in pollen biology, including the HS response. 

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