Figure 1.
Mu insertion into EXPB1 and its effect on Zea m 1 content of pollen. (a) Cartoon showing the structure of EXPB1 and location of the Mu insertion (exons denoted with boxes). Also indicated are the locations of primers used for PCR screening. (b) Mu is inserted near the intron border flanking the fourth exon. (c) Portion of a 2-D gel image of wild type (EXPB1) pollen protein showing the Zea m 1 isoforms, which were identified by immunoblotting. (d) Relative amount of total Zea m 1 protein extracted from pollen of EXPB1/EXPB1 and expb1/expb1 plants. (Mean±SE; N = 2; t = 9.15; p = 0.035).
Figure 2.
Pollen viability and pollen performance in vitro and in vivo. (a) Percentage of viable pollen, based on staining with thiazolyl blue (mean±SE, N = 20–22 plants). (b) Micrograph of pollen stained with thiazolyl blue. Viable pollen stained dark purple. (c) Pollen tube growth in vitro (mean±SE, N = 20–22). Bars with different letters of the alphabet differ significantly using Tukey pairwise comparisons with the overall probability adjusted for multiple comparisons.
Figure 3.
Transmission rate of expb1 as a function of the size of the pollen load from EXPB1/expb1 plants (mean±SE, N = 4).
Figure 4.
Pollen tube from EXPB1 pollen growing through ovary tissue for 22 h after pollination. Ovaries were stained with 0.1% aniline blue for 30 min and then examined under a fluorescence microscope.