Abstract
The plant life cycle is characterized by the alternation of generations between genetically active diploid sporophytes and haploid gametophytes. The gametophytes of flowering plants are sexually dimorphic. While the male gametophyte consists of only three cells (two sperm and a vegetative cell) and is released by the parent sporophyte, the female gametophyte (or embryo sac) is more complex and remains imbedded within diploid sporophyte tissues. In maize, the female gametophyte is embedded in a large ovule surrounded with multiple nucellar cell layers impeding live-cell imaging approaches to study embryo sac functions. Here, we describe a simple protocol to visualize embryo sacs with hormonal fluorescent reporters by increasing accessibility of the female gametophyte. The method described is applicable for visualization of any fluorescent embryo sac reporter. The embryo sacs visualization method developed for maize could be extended to facilitate visualization of embryos sac in other important cereals like wheat, rice, and oats.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by NSF Plant Genome Program Grant DBI-1340050 to M.M.S.E. All transgenic lines were generously supplied by the Maize Cell Genomics Project (http://maize.jcvi.org/cellgenomics/index.php).
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Chettoor, A.M., Evans, M.M.S. (2017). Live-Cell Imaging of Auxin and Cytokinin Signaling in Maize Female Gametophytes. In: Schmidt, A. (eds) Plant Germline Development. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1669. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7286-9_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7286-9_9
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