Simura, Jan
- Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Research article2022Peer reviewedOpen access
Auxin boosts energy generation pathways to fuel pollen maturation in barley
Amanda, Dhika; Frey, Felix P.; Neumann, Ulla; Przybyl, Marine; Simura, Jan; Zhang, Youjun; Chen, Zongliang; Gallavotti, Andrea; Fernie, Alisdair R.; Ljung, Karin; Acosta, Ivan F.
Abstract
Pollen grains become increasingly independent of the mother plant as they reach maturity through poorly understood developmental programs. We report that the hormone auxin is essential during barley pollen maturation to boost the expression of genes encoding almost every step of heterotrophic energy production pathways. Accordingly, auxin is necessary for the flux of sucrose and hexoses into glycolysis and to increase the levels of pyruvate and two tricarboxylic (TCA) cycle metabolites (citrate and succinate). Moreover, bioactive auxin is synthesized by the pollen-localized enzyme HvYUCCA4, supporting that pollen grains autonomously produce auxin to stimulate a specific cellular output, energy generation, that fuels maturation processes such as starch accumulation. Our results demonstrate that auxin can shift central carbon metabolism to drive plant cell development, which suggests a direct mechanism for auxin's ability to promote growth and differentiation.
Published in
Current Biology
2022, Volume: 32, number: 8, pages: 1798-+
Publisher: CELL PRESS
Ljung, Karin
- Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Plant Biotechnology
Publication identifier
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.02.073
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/117351