Zea mays Transcriptome or Gene expression. Zea mays

Evidence from confocal microscopic reconstruction of maize anther development in fertile, mac1 (excess germ cells) and msca1 (no germ cells) flowers indicates that the male germ line is multiclonal and uses the MAC1 protein to organize the somatic niche. Furthermore, we identified redox status as a determinant of germ cell fate, defining a mechanism distinct from the animal germ cell lineage. Decreasing oxygen or H2O2 increases germ cell numbers, stimulates superficial germ cell formation, and rescues germinal differentiation in msca1 flowers. Conversly, oxidizing environments inhibit germ cell specification and cause ectopic differentiation in deeper tissues. We propose that hypoxia, arising naturally within growing anther tissue, acts as a positional cue to set germ cell fate. key words: anther development, maize, male-sterile Overall design: Two replicates of laser microdissected pre-meiotic cells were compared to two replicates of whole anthers, which contains pre-meiotic cells and somatic cells, from the same developmental stage and individual wild type plants. In another experiment, laser microdissected pre-meiotic cells from wild type (mac1-heterozygous) anthers were compared to laser microdissected pre-meiotic cells from mac1 (mutant) anthers.