Pollen Tube Guidance， a Hard Journey to Complete Fertilization

Abstract: Pollen tubes growth and guidance process is a pivotal step for delivering male gametes to female gametes to complete fertilization in flowering plant. This process is very complicated and needs multiple signals (attractants) to guide pollen tubes to their target， including signals (attractants) coming from sporophyte and female gametophyte (FG) of plant. The latest decade had seen substantial process in this field， which provided the convincing evidences about the important function of FG cells in pollen tube guidance and demonstrated the attractants secreted from synergid cell. In this review， we focus on the gametophyte phase of pollen tube guidance， the function of FG cells in pollen tube guidance and the characteristics and verification of potential attractants.

CSTR: 32200.14.cjcb.2013.09.0018