| Affiliation: | (1) PKU–Yale Joint Research Center of Agricultural and Plant Molecular Biology, National Key Laboratory of Protein Engineering and Plant Gene Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, 100871 Beijing, China;(2) Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing, China;(3) Present address: Department of Plant, Cell and Environment, National Institute of Fruit Tree Science, Fujimoto 2-1, Tsukuba, 305-8605 Ibaraki, Japan |
| Abstract: | To investigate the regulatory mechanisms of sex expression in cucumber, morphological observations and biochemical analyses were carried out on inappropriate stamen development of female flowers of cucumber. It was found that developmental arrest of the inappropriate stamen mainly occurs at the anther primordium. This arrest is closely correlated with DNA damage, as detected by TUNEL assay, and might result from anther-specific DNase activation. It was also found that the DNA damage does not lead to cell degeneration, although chromatin condensation is observed in the anther primordia.Abbreviations DAPI 4 ,6-diamidine-2-phenylindole dihydrochloride - MTT 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide - PCD programmed cell death - TUNEL TdT-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling |
