Skip to main content
PMC home page
The Plant Cell logoLink to The Plant Cell
. 1996 Mar;8(3):403–416. doi: 10.1105/tpc.8.3.403

The Critical Requirement for Linolenic Acid Is Pollen Development, Not Photosynthesis, in an Arabidopsis Mutant.

M McConn 1, J Browse 1
PMCID: PMC161109  PMID: 12239389

Abstract

The very high proportions of trienoic fatty acids found in chloroplast membranes of all higher plants suggest that these lipid structures might be essential for photosynthesis. We report here on the production of Arabidopsis triple mutants that contain negligible levels of trienoic fatty acids. Photosynthesis at 22[deg]C was barely affected, and vegetative growth of the mutants was identical with that of the wild type, demonstrating that any requirement for trienoic acyl groups in membrane structure and function is relatively subtle. Although vegetative growth and development were unaffected, the triple mutants are male sterlle and produce no seed under normal conditions. Comparisons of pollen development in wild-type and triple mutant flowers established that pollen grains in the mutant developed to the tricellular stage. Exogenous applications of [alpha]-llnolenate or jasmonate restored fertility. Taken together, the results demonstrate that the critical role of trienoic acids in the life cycle of plants is as the precursor of oxylipin, a signaling compound that regulates final maturation processes and the release of pollen.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (2.3 MB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Browse J., McConn M., James D., Jr, Miquel M. Mutants of Arabidopsis deficient in the synthesis of alpha-linolenate. Biochemical and genetic characterization of the endoplasmic reticulum linoleoyl desaturase. J Biol Chem. 1993 Aug 5;268(22):16345–16351. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Browse J., McCourt P., Somerville C. A mutant of Arabidopsis deficient in c(18:3) and c(16:3) leaf lipids. Plant Physiol. 1986 Jul;81(3):859–864. doi: 10.1104/pp.81.3.859. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Browse J., Warwick N., Somerville C. R., Slack C. R. Fluxes through the prokaryotic and eukaryotic pathways of lipid synthesis in the '16:3' plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Biochem J. 1986 Apr 1;235(1):25–31. doi: 10.1042/bj2350025. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Chaudhury A. M. Nuclear Genes Controlling Male Fertility. Plant Cell. 1993 Oct;5(10):1277–1283. doi: 10.1105/tpc.5.10.1277. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Coleman A. W., Goff L. J. Applications of fluorochromes to pollen biology. I. Mithramycin and 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) as vital stains and for quantitation of nuclear DNA. Stain Technol. 1985 May;60(3):145–154. doi: 10.3109/10520298509113905. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Croft KPC., Juttner F., Slusarenko A. J. Volatile Products of the Lipoxygenase Pathway Evolved from Phaseolus vulgaris (L.) Leaves Inoculated with Pseudomonas syringae pv phaseolicola. Plant Physiol. 1993 Jan;101(1):13–24. doi: 10.1104/pp.101.1.13. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Farmer E. E., Ryan C. A. Octadecanoid Precursors of Jasmonic Acid Activate the Synthesis of Wound-Inducible Proteinase Inhibitors. Plant Cell. 1992 Feb;4(2):129–134. doi: 10.1105/tpc.4.2.129. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Feys BJF., Benedetti C. E., Penfold C. N., Turner J. G. Arabidopsis Mutants Selected for Resistance to the Phytotoxin Coronatine Are Male Sterile, Insensitive to Methyl Jasmonate, and Resistant to a Bacterial Pathogen. Plant Cell. 1994 May;6(5):751–759. doi: 10.1105/tpc.6.5.751. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Gibson S., Arondel V., Iba K., Somerville C. Cloning of a temperature-regulated gene encoding a chloroplast omega-3 desaturase from Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Physiol. 1994 Dec;106(4):1615–1621. doi: 10.1104/pp.106.4.1615. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Gundlach H., Müller M. J., Kutchan T. M., Zenk M. H. Jasmonic acid is a signal transducer in elicitor-induced plant cell cultures. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1992 Mar 15;89(6):2389–2393. doi: 10.1073/pnas.89.6.2389. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Heslop-Harrison J., Heslop-Harrison Y. Evaluation of pollen viability by enzymatically induced fluorescence; intracellular hydrolysis of fluorescein diacetate. Stain Technol. 1970 May;45(3):115–120. doi: 10.3109/10520297009085351. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Iba K., Gibson S., Nishiuchi T., Fuse T., Nishimura M., Arondel V., Hugly S., Somerville C. A gene encoding a chloroplast omega-3 fatty acid desaturase complements alterations in fatty acid desaturation and chloroplast copy number of the fad7 mutant of Arabidopsis thaliana. J Biol Chem. 1993 Nov 15;268(32):24099–24105. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. McConn M., Hugly S., Browse J., Somerville C. A Mutation at the fad8 Locus of Arabidopsis Identifies a Second Chloroplast [omega]-3 Desaturase. Plant Physiol. 1994 Dec;106(4):1609–1614. doi: 10.1104/pp.106.4.1609. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. McKeon T. A., Stumpf P. K. Purification and characterization of the stearoyl-acyl carrier protein desaturase and the acyl-acyl carrier protein thioesterase from maturing seeds of safflower. J Biol Chem. 1982 Oct 25;257(20):12141–12147. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Miquel M., Browse J. Arabidopsis mutants deficient in polyunsaturated fatty acid synthesis. Biochemical and genetic characterization of a plant oleoyl-phosphatidylcholine desaturase. J Biol Chem. 1992 Jan 25;267(3):1502–1509. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Okuley J., Lightner J., Feldmann K., Yadav N., Lark E., Browse J. Arabidopsis FAD2 gene encodes the enzyme that is essential for polyunsaturated lipid synthesis. Plant Cell. 1994 Jan;6(1):147–158. doi: 10.1105/tpc.6.1.147. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Preuss D., Lemieux B., Yen G., Davis R. W. A conditional sterile mutation eliminates surface components from Arabidopsis pollen and disrupts cell signaling during fertilization. Genes Dev. 1993 Jun;7(6):974–985. doi: 10.1101/gad.7.6.974. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Regan S. M., Moffatt B. A. Cytochemical Analysis of Pollen Development in Wild-Type Arabidopsis and a Male-Sterile Mutant. Plant Cell. 1990 Sep;2(9):877–889. doi: 10.1105/tpc.2.9.877. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Roughan P. G., Holland R., Slack C. R. The role of chloroplasts and microsomal fractions in polar-lipid synthesis from [1-14C]acetate by cell-free preparations from spinach (Spinacia oleracea) leaves. Biochem J. 1980 Apr 15;188(1):17–24. doi: 10.1042/bj1880017. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Schmidt H., Dresselhaus T., Buck F., Heinz E. Purification and PCR-based cDNA cloning of a plastidial n-6 desaturase. Plant Mol Biol. 1994 Oct;26(2):631–642. doi: 10.1007/BF00013749. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Shanklin J., Somerville C. Stearoyl-acyl-carrier-protein desaturase from higher plants is structurally unrelated to the animal and fungal homologs. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1991 Mar 15;88(6):2510–2514. doi: 10.1073/pnas.88.6.2510. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Shimakata T., Stumpf P. K. Isolation and function of spinach leaf beta-ketoacyl-[acyl-carrier-protein] synthases. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1982 Oct;79(19):5808–5812. doi: 10.1073/pnas.79.19.5808. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Smyth D. R., Bowman J. L., Meyerowitz E. M. Early flower development in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell. 1990 Aug;2(8):755–767. doi: 10.1105/tpc.2.8.755. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Vick B. A., Zimmerman D. C. Biosynthesis of jasmonic Acid by several plant species. Plant Physiol. 1984 Jun;75(2):458–461. doi: 10.1104/pp.75.2.458. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Yadav N. S., Wierzbicki A., Aegerter M., Caster C. S., Pérez-Grau L., Kinney A. J., Hitz W. D., Booth J. R., Jr, Schweiger B., Stecca K. L. Cloning of higher plant omega-3 fatty acid desaturases. Plant Physiol. 1993 Oct;103(2):467–476. doi: 10.1104/pp.103.2.467. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from The Plant Cell are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

RESOURCES