Article

Gametophytic self-incompatibility inhibits pollen tube growth using different mechanisms.

School of Biosciences, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK B15 2TT.
Trends in Plant Science (impact factor: 11.05). 01/2004; 8(12):598-605. DOI:10.1016/j.tplants.2003.10.008
Source: PubMed

ABSTRACT Self-incompatibility (SI) is one of the most important mechanisms used by plants to prevent self-pollination and consequently inbreeding. It is genetically controlled by the S-locus, which allows the recognition and rejection of 'self' (S-phenotypically identical) pollen. Gametophytically controlled SI (GSI) is the most widespread SI system. To date, only two forms have been elucidated in detail at the molecular level, revealing two different stigmatic S-genes. Here we summarize the evidence for the use of two different mechanisms to inhibit incompatible pollen tube growth. Because the limited data suggest the independent evolution of these two GSI systems, it would be interesting to explore other GSI systems to determine the extent of the mechanistic diversity.

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    Article: Contrasted patterns of molecular evolution in dominant and recessive self-incompatibility haplotypes in Arabidopsis.
    Pauline M Goubet, Hélène Bergès, Arnaud Bellec, Elisa Prat, Nicolas Helmstetter, Sophie Mangenot, Sophie Gallina, Anne-Catherine Holl, Isabelle Fobis-Loisy, Xavier Vekemans, Vincent Castric
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    ABSTRACT: Self-incompatibility has been considered by geneticists a model system for reproductive biology and balancing selection, but our understanding of the genetic basis and evolution of this molecular lock-and-key system has remained limited by the extreme level of sequence divergence among haplotypes, resulting in a lack of appropriate genomic sequences. In this study, we report and analyze the full sequence of eleven distinct haplotypes of the self-incompatibility locus (S-locus) in two closely related Arabidopsis species, obtained from individual BAC libraries. We use this extensive dataset to highlight sharply contrasted patterns of molecular evolution of each of the two genes controlling self-incompatibility themselves, as well as of the genomic region surrounding them. We find strong collinearity of the flanking regions among haplotypes on each side of the S-locus together with high levels of sequence similarity. In contrast, the S-locus region itself shows spectacularly deep gene genealogies, high variability in size and gene organization, as well as complete absence of sequence similarity in intergenic sequences and striking accumulation of transposable elements. Of particular interest, we demonstrate that dominant and recessive S-haplotypes experience sharply contrasted patterns of molecular evolution. Indeed, dominant haplotypes exhibit larger size and a much higher density of transposable elements, being matched only by that in the centromere. Overall, these properties highlight that the S-locus presents many striking similarities with other regions involved in the determination of mating-types, such as sex chromosomes in animals or in plants, or the mating-type locus in fungi and green algae.
    PLoS Genetics 03/2012; 8(3):e1002495. · 8.69 Impact Factor
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Keywords

different mechanisms
 
GSI
 
GSI systems
 
incompatible pollen tube growth
 
limited data
 
mechanistic diversity
 
molecular level
 
plants
 
S-locus
 
S-phenotypically identical
 
SI
 
two GSI systems
 
widespread SI system
 

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