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Directional Growth for Sperm Delivery

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Pollen Tip Growth

Abstract

Flowering plants use a polarized projection of the pollen grain called a pollen tube, to precisely deliver two sperm cells to the female gametes, which are deeply buried in the female gametophyte of the ovules for fertilization. The pollen tubes navigate a long route from the stigma, through the transmitting tract over a considerable amount of time before targeting the individual ovules. How is this precise cellular targeting achieved by the pollen tube? A lot of progress has been made toward identifying the sources of guidance cues that the pollen tube receives and the molecules that act as such guidance cues during its journey toward the ovule. In this chapter, we discuss these pollen tube guidance cues and also the latest tools in bio-imaging and microfluidics that would enable us to gain a better understanding of this process of directional growth for sperm delivery.

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Abbreviations

AGP:

Arabinogalactan protein

Ca2+ :

Calcium ion

ECM:

Extracellular matrix

GFP:

Green fluorescent protein

LoC:

Lab-on-a-chip

TPE:

Two-photon excitation microscopy

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) program (JPMJER1004) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (JP16H06465, JP16K21727, and 15F15388) to T.H. S.S is supported by JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship for Overseas Researchers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Transformative Bio-molecules, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan

    Subramanian Sankaranarayanan & Tetsuya Higashiyama

  2. Division of Biological Science, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan

    Tetsuya Higashiyama

  3. JST, ERATO, Higashiyama Live-Holonics Project, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 464-8602, Japan

    Tetsuya Higashiyama

Authors
  1. Subramanian Sankaranarayanan
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  2. Tetsuya Higashiyama
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Correspondence to Subramanian Sankaranarayanan or Tetsuya Higashiyama .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Biology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

    Gerhard Obermeyer

  2. Cell Biology Molecular Genetics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

    José Feijó

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Sankaranarayanan, S., Higashiyama, T. (2017). Directional Growth for Sperm Delivery. In: Obermeyer, G., Feijó, J. (eds) Pollen Tip Growth. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56645-0_8

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