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Plant Physiol, November 2001, Vol. 127, pp. 1157-1166
The Arabidopsis Gene Tardy Asynchronous Meiosis Is
Required for the Normal Pace and Synchrony of Cell Division during Male
Meiosis1
Jean-Louis
Magnard,2
Ming
Yang,3
Yun-Chia
Sophia
Chen,4
Michele
Leary, and
Sheila
McCormick*
Plant Gene Expression Center, United States Department of
Agriculture/Agricultural Research Service, University of California,
800 Buchanan Street, Albany, California 94710
Male meiosis in higher organisms features synchronous cell
divisions in a large number of cells. It is not clear how this synchrony is achieved, nor is it known whether the synchrony is linked
to the regulation of cell cycle progression. Here, we describe an
Arabidopsis mutant, named tardy asynchronous meiosis
(tam), that exhibits a phenotype of delayed and
asynchronous cell divisions during male meiosis. In Arabidopsis, two
nuclear divisions occur before simultaneous cytokinesis yields a tetrad
of haploid cells. In tam, cell divisions are delayed,
resulting in the formation of abnormal intermediates, most frequently
dyad meiotic products, or in rare cases, dyad pollen (two gametophytes
within one exine wall). Temperature-shift experiments showed that the
percentage of the abnormal intermediates increased at 27°C. Analysis
of tam and the
tam/quartet1 double mutant showed that
most of these abnormal intermediates could continue through the normal
rounds of cell divisions and form functional pollen, though at a slower
than normal pace. The asynchrony of cell division started at the G2/M transition, with cells entering metaphase at different time points, during both meiosis I and II. In addition, chromosome condensation defects and mis-segregation were sometimes observed in
tam. These observations suggest that the TAM protein
positively regulates cell cycle progression, perhaps by promoting the
G2/M transition. We speculate that there is a signal, perhaps TAM, that
couples the normal pace of cell cycle progression with the synchrony of cell division during male meiosis.
1
This work was supported by the U.S. Department
of Agriculture Current Research Information System (grant no.
5335-21000-011-00D). M.L. was a participant in the Undergraduate
Research Apprentice Program (URAP) at the University of California
(Berkeley) and was supported by a URAP fellowship.
2
Present address: Reproduction et Développement des
Plantes, Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon, 46 Allee d'Italie,
Lyon, France, 69364.
3
Present address: Department of Botany, Oklahoma State
University, 104 Life Sciences East, Stillwater, OK 74078-3013.
4
Present address: Monsanto, 700 Chesterfield Village
Parkway, St. Louis, MO 63198.
*
Corresponding author; e-mail sheilamc{at}nature.berkeley.edu; fax
510-559-5678.
© 2001 American Society of Plant Physiologists
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