Darwin's foundation for investigating self-incompatibility and the progress toward a physiological model for S-RNase-based SI

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Abstract

Charles Darwin made extensive observations of the pollination biology of a wide variety of plants. He carefully documented the consequences of self-pollination and described species that were self-sterile but that could easily be crossed with other plants of the same species. He believed that compatibility was controlled by the 'mutual action' of pollen and pistil contents. A genetic model for self-sterility was developed in the early 1900s based on studies of the compatibility relationships among, what are now referred to as, self-incompatible (SI) Nicotiana species. Today, it is believed that SI in these species is controlled by an interaction between S-RNases produced in the pistil and F-box proteins expressed in pollen and, moreover, that this S-RNase-based SI system is shared by a great diversity of other plant species. Current research is aimed at understanding how the mutual actions of these S-gene products function in the physiological context of pollen tube growth.

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McClure, B. (2009). Darwin’s foundation for investigating self-incompatibility and the progress toward a physiological model for S-RNase-based SI. In Journal of Experimental Botany (Vol. 60, pp. 1069–1081). https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erp024

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