Figure 5.

Reduction of PIRL6 mRNA levels by PIRL6-KD. A, Reduced PIRL6-GFP expression in pollen produced by a plant homozygous for the genomic PIRL6-GFP reporter construct and hemizygous for the PIRL6-KD(L) construct, such that pollen all contained the GFP reporter but were segregating for the knockdown construct. Mature pollen were viewed by DIC (top) and confocal fluorescence (bottom) microscopy. Arrows indicate pollen with visibly reduced PIRL6-GFP signal. B, Relationship between PIRL6 mRNA expression and phenotype severity in wild-type controls (WT) and individual PIRL6-KD plants from three independent transgenic lines. Top graph, PIRL6 RT-qPCR carried out on developing flowers from individual T3 plants from three independent transgenic lines. Plants were homozygous for the PIRL6-KD construct; means and se from three replicate RT-qPCRs are shown. Bottom graph, Phenotype severity in the same individual T3 plants, gauged by the percentage of inviable pollen (dark blue) or aborted ovules (pink). The range of n values is as follows: 124 to 1,773 (pollen); 87 to 192 (ovules)