Skip Navigation


JXB Advance Access originally published online on April 10, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany 2009 60(7):2129-2138; doi:10.1093/jxb/erp091
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrowOA All Versions of this Article:
60/7/2129    most recent
erp091v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Reichler, S. A.
Right arrow Articles by Roux, S. J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Reichler, S. A.
Right arrow Articles by Roux, S. J.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by Reichler, S. A.
Right arrow Articles by Roux, S. J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2009 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This paper is available online free of all access charges (see http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/open_access.html for further details)

RESEARCH PAPER

Intersection of two signalling pathways: extracellular nucleotides regulate pollen germination and pollen tube growth via nitric oxide

Stuart A. Reichler, Jonathan Torres, Amy L. Rivera, Viviana A. Cintolesi, Greg Clark and Stanley J. Roux*

University of Texas at Austin, Section of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, 1 University Station, A6700 Austin, TX 78712, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sroux{at}uts.cc.utexas.edu

Plant and animal cells release or secrete ATP by various mechanisms, and this activity allows extracellular ATP to serve as a signalling molecule. Recent reports suggest that extracellular ATP induces plant responses ranging from increased cytosolic calcium to changes in auxin transport, xenobiotic resistance, pollen germination, and growth. Although calcium has been identified as a secondary messenger for the extracellular ATP signal, other parts of this signal transduction chain remain unknown. Increasing the extracellular concentration of ATP{gamma}S, a poorly-hydrolysable ATP analogue, inhibited both pollen germination and pollen tube elongation, while the addition of AMPS had no effect. Because pollen tube elongation is also sensitive to nitric oxide, this raised the possibility that a connection exists between the two pathways. Four approaches were used to test whether the germination and growth effects of extracellular ATP{gamma}S were transduced via nitric oxide. The results showed that increases in extracellular ATP{gamma}S induced increases in cellular nitric oxide, chemical agonists of the nitric oxide signalling pathway lowered the threshold of extracellular ATP{gamma}S that inhibits pollen germination, an antagonist of guanylate cyclase, which can inhibit some nitric oxide signalling pathways, blocked the ATP{gamma}S-induced inhibition of both pollen germination and pollen tube elongation, and the effects of applied ATP{gamma}S were blocked in nia1nia2 mutants, which have diminished NO production. The concurrence of these four data sets support the conclusion that the suppression of pollen germination and pollen tube elongation by extracellular nucleotides is mediated in part via the nitric oxide signalling pathway.

Key words: Calcium signalling, extracellular ATP, guanylate cyclase, nitrate reductase, pollen germination

Received 30 December 2008; Revised 2 March 2009 Accepted 2 March 2009


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.