Category: Image of the Month

This image accompanied an amazing write up about many aspects of pollen and how it affects our lives….Continue Reading Image of the Month (October 2017)

Pollen tube growth in cold. Literally cool The above image shows pollen tube growth in R. glacialis during the cold snap experiment in the laboratory. This image is from an article by Gerlinde Steinacher and Johanna Wagner: “The Progamic Phase in High-Mountain Plants: From Pollination to Fertilization in the Cold * Institute of Botany, Faculty of Biology, University…Continue Reading Image of the month (April 2015)

CLE peptide’s role in heat stress These images are from recent article by Endo et al 2013 : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23910659 Under normal condition (22°C), CLE45 peptide is expressed only in the stigma. However, under heat-stressed conditions (30°C), as shown in the top image on the left, the expression of CLE45 peptide was found both in the…Continue Reading Image of the month (April 2014)

apertureless Arabidopsis pollen This image is from recent articles by Dobritsa et al 2011 and 2013: http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/157/2/947.full http://www.plantcell.org/content/24/11/4452.full The image shows an Arabidopsis mutant pollen (inp1) that lacks all three apertures. This mutant was identified in a large screen (first of the two references listed above) and the molecular basis of the loss of aperture…Continue Reading Image of the month (August 2013)

The amazing diversity of pollen shapes This image is from the DailyMail website. The montage of microscopic scanning electron microscopic (SEM) images of various pollen is shown in this figure. The pollen in the middle is from the pumpkin and it is visible to the naked eye (0.2mm). The included link consists of additional stunning…Continue Reading Image of the month (May 2013)

Pine pollen grain with wings This image is from the Department of Geosciences website. A released pine pollen grain consists of four cells, unlike in angiosperms, wherein it contains either two or three cells: a. Two prothallial cells b. One generative cell c. One tube cell This four-celled pollen grain is shed from the microstrobilus (male…Continue Reading Image of the month (January 2013)

Sperm cells labeled with photoconvertible fusion protein in Arabidopsis pollen tubes These images are from a research article that was recently published in Current Biology (March 2011). Article reference: Live-cell imaging reveals the dynamics of two sperm cells during double fertilization in Arabidopsis thaliana. Hamamura Y, Saito C, Awai C, Kurihara D, Miyawaki A, Nakagawa…Continue Reading Image of the month (May 2011)

xylanase mutant pollen tubes in Maize This image is from the cover of the January 2007 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. This cover image accompanied a research article in the same issue: ‘Maize Pollen Coat Xylanase Facilitates Pollen Tube Penetration into Silk during Sexual Reproduction’ by Der Fen Suen and Anthony H. C. Huang,…Continue Reading Image of the month (March 2011)

Zebra pollen mutants of Arabidopsis This image is from a research article, ‘CYP704B1 Is a Long-Chain Fatty Acid ω-Hydroxylase Essential for Sporopollenin Synthesis in Pollen of Arabidopsis” by Anna A. Dobritsa, Jay Shrestha, Marc Morant, Franck Pinot, Michiyo Matsuno, Robert Swanson, Birger Lindberg Møller, and Daphne Preuss, University of Chicago, USA. Article reference: Dobritsa et…Continue Reading Image of the month (August 2010)

Four states of double fertilization This image made the cover of March 2010 issue of PLoS Genetics and accompanied a research article entitled “HAP2(GCS1)-Dependent Gamete Fusion Requires a Positively Charged Carboxy-Terminal Domain” authored by Julian L. Wong, Alexander R. Leydon, Mark A. Johnson at the Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode…Continue Reading Image of the month (April 2010)