Specific heat-stress acclimation response in Arabidopsis pollen

In many plants, pollen development and fertilization are considered most sensitive to heat stress (HS), which often leads to male sterility. Currently, very little is known about the molecular mechanisms involved in the tolerance of pollen to high temperatures. Developing pollen and pollen tubes, unlike vegetative tissues which can resume growth after surviving stressful events, have a limiting window of time to properly mature and fertilize an ovule during stress. In this study, we compared gene expression changes in response to heat stress in wild type Arabidopsis thaliana (Col-0 ecotype) pollen and pollen from the thermotolerant apx2-1 mutant. Also, to identify gene expression changes that are specific to pollen we compared the pollen with cauline leaves exposed to heat stress.