A rapid, inexpensive, and semi-quantitative method for determining pollen tube extension using fluorescence

Abstract

Background: Pollen tubes extend rapidly when pollen grains are incubated in defined media. Tube extension requires many critical functions of plant cells including molecular signaling, cytoskeleton remodeling, secretion, and cell wall synthesis. Consequently, pollen tube growth has been established as a way to conduct primary screens of chemical libraries to identify compounds that perturb key cellular processes in plants. Results: Here we report a simple, inexpensive, rapid and semi-quantitative method for measurement of pollen tube growth in microtiter plates. The method relies on Congo Red binding to pollen tubes and correlates dye fluorescence to tube length. Conclusions: This method can be used in any laboratory without specialized equipment, and has the potential to enable larger screens as chemical libraries grow and to make chemical screening accessible to researchers building specialized libraries designed to probe pathways in plant biology. © 2014 Hartman et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.