Figures
Four states of double fertilization.
In flowering plants, a pollen tube delivers two sperm to an ovule: one fuses with the egg to form an embryo (magenta), and the other fuses with the central cell to form endosperm (green, top ovule). Sperm with reduced function of HAP2(GCS1), a sperm-expressed transmembrane protein, are either completely infertile (left), fertilize the egg but not the central cell (right), or fertilize the central cell but not the egg (bottom). In this issue of PLoS Genetics, Wong et al. use molecular genetic studies in Arabidopsis to define critical features of HAP2(GCS1), a deeply conserved protein essential for gamete fusion.
Image Credit: Julian L. Wong and Alexander R. Leydon (Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, USA)
Citation: (2010) PLoS Genetics Issue Image | Vol. 6(3) March 2010. PLoS Genet 6(3): ev06.i03. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pgen.v06.i03
Published: March 26, 2010
Copyright: © 2010 Wong et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
In flowering plants, a pollen tube delivers two sperm to an ovule: one fuses with the egg to form an embryo (magenta), and the other fuses with the central cell to form endosperm (green, top ovule). Sperm with reduced function of HAP2(GCS1), a sperm-expressed transmembrane protein, are either completely infertile (left), fertilize the egg but not the central cell (right), or fertilize the central cell but not the egg (bottom). In this issue of PLoS Genetics, Wong et al. use molecular genetic studies in Arabidopsis to define critical features of HAP2(GCS1), a deeply conserved protein essential for gamete fusion.
Image Credit: Julian L. Wong and Alexander R. Leydon (Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, USA)