Plant Physiology Preview
Published on July 30, 2008; 10.1104/pp.108.125229
Received June 23, 2008
Accepted July 27, 2008
Comparative Transcriptomics of Arabidopsis thaliana Sperm Cells
Filipe Borges , Gabriela Gomes , Rui Gardner , Nuno Moreno , Sheila McCormick , Jose A. Feijo *, and Jorg D. Becker
Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia; Centro de Biologia do Desenvolvimento, Oeiras, 2780-901, Portugal; Plant Gene Expression Center, USDA/ARS-UC-Berkeley, 800 Buchanan St., Albany, CA, 94710; Depto. Biologia Vegetal, Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa; Lisboa, Campo Grande, 1700, Portugal
* Corresponding author; email: jfeijo{at}fc.ul.pt.
In flowering plants the two sperm cells are embedded within the cytoplasm of the growing pollen tube and as such are passively transported to the embryo sac, wherein double fertilization occurs upon their release. Understanding the mechanisms and conditions by which male gametes mature and take part in fertilization are crucial goals in the study of plant reproduction. Studies of gene expression in male gametes of maize and Plumbago, and in lily generative cells already showed that the previously held view of transcriptionally inert male gametes was not true, but genome-wide studies were lacking. Analyses in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana were hindered because no method to isolate sperm cells was available. Here we used Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) to isolate sperm cells from Arabidopsis, allowing GeneChip analysis of the transcriptome of sperm cells at a genome-wide level. Comparative analysis of the sperm cell transcriptome with those of representative sporophytic tissues and of pollen showed that sperm has a distinct and diverse transcriptional profile. Functional classifications of genes with enriched expression in sperm cells showed that DNA repair, ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis and cell cycle progression are over-represented Gene Ontology categories. Moreover, analysis of the small RNA and DNA methylation pathways suggests that distinct mechanisms might be involved in regulating the epigenetic state of the paternal genome. We identified numerous candidate genes whose involvement in sperm cell development and fertilization can now be directly tested in Arabidopsis. These results provide a roadmap to decipher the role of sperm-expressed proteins.
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