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JXB Advance Access published online on October 27, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany, doi:10.1093/jxb/erp280
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© 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/2.5/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

Three cotton genes preferentially expressed in flower tissues encode actin-depolymerizing factors which are involved in F-actin dynamics in cells

Xue-Bao Li *{dagger}, Dan Xu *, Xiu-Lan Wang, Geng-Qing Huang, Juan Luo, Deng-Di Li, Ze-Ting Zhang and Wen-Liang Xu

Hubei Key Laboratory of Genetic Regulation and Integrative Biology, College of Life Sciences, HuaZhong Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: xbli{at}mail.ccnu.edu.cn

To investigate whether the high expression levels of actin-depolymerizing factor genes are related to pollen development, three GhADF genes (cDNAs) were isolated and characterized in cotton. Among them, GhADF6 and GhADF8 were preferentially expressed in petals, whereas GhADF7 displayed the highest level of expression in anthers, revealing its anther specificity. The GhADF7 transcripts in anthers reached its peak value at flowering, suggesting that its expression is developmentally-regulated in anthers. The GhADF7 gene including the promoter region was isolated from the cotton genome. To demonstrate the specificity of the GhADF7 promoter, the 5'-flanking region, including the promoter and 5'-untranslated region, was fused with the GUS gene. Histochemical assays demonstrated that the GhADF7:GUS gene was specifically expressed in pollen grains. When pollen grains germinated, very strong GUS staining was detected in the elongating pollen tube. Furthermore, overexpression of GhADF7 gene in Arabidopsis thaliana reduced the viable pollen grains and, consequently, transgenic plants were partially male-sterile. Overexpression of GhADF7 in fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) altered the balance of actin depolymerization and polymerization, leading to the defective cytokinesis and multinucleate formation in the cells. Given all the above results together, it is proposed that the GhADF7 gene may play an important role in pollen development and germination.

Key words: ADF, cotton, F-actin, gene expression, pollen development

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

Received 16 January 2009; Revised 4 August 2009 Accepted 18 August 2009


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