Monitoring autophagy in rice tapetal cells during pollen maturation

Shigeru Hanamata; Jumpei Sawada; Bunki Toh; Seijiro Ono; Kazunori Ogawa; Togo Fukunaga; Ken-Ichi Nonomura; Takamitsu Kurusu; Kazuyuki Kuchitsu

doi:10.5511/plantbiotechnology.19.0417a

Monitoring autophagy in rice tapetal cells during pollen maturation

Plant Biotechnol (Tokyo). 2019;36(2):99-105. doi: 10.5511/plantbiotechnology.19.0417a.

Authors

Shigeru Hanamata^{1

2

3}, Jumpei Sawada¹, Bunki Toh¹, Seijiro Ono⁴, Kazunori Ogawa¹, Togo Fukunaga¹, Ken-Ichi Nonomura⁴, Takamitsu Kurusu^{1

2

5}, Kazuyuki Kuchitsu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Applied Biological Science, Tokyo University of Science, 2641 Yamazaki, Noda, Chiba 278-8510, Japan.
² Imaging Frontier Center, Tokyo University of Science, 2641 Yamazaki, Noda, Chiba 278-8510, Japan.
³ Graduate School of Science and Technology, Niigata University, University, 2-8050 Ikarashi, Niigata 950-2181, Japan.
⁴ Plant Cytogenetics Laboratory, National Institute of Genetics, 1111 Yata, Mishima, Shizuoka 411-8540, Japan.
⁵ Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Suwa University of Science, 5000-1 Toyohira, Chino, Nagano 391-0292, Japan.

PMID: 31768110
PMCID: PMC6847784
DOI: 10.5511/plantbiotechnology.19.0417a

Abstract

We have previously shown that autophagy is required for post meiotic anther development including programmed cell death-mediated degradation of the tapetum and pollen maturation in rice. However, the spatiotemporal dynamics of autophagy in the tapetum remain poorly understood. We here established an in vivo imaging technique to analyze the dynamics of autophagy in rice tapetum cells by expressing green fluorescent protein-tagged AtATG8, a marker for autophagosomes. 3D-imaging analysis revealed that the number of autophagosomes/autophagy-related structures is extremely low at the tetrad stage (stage 8), and autophagy is dramatically induced at the uninucleate stages (stage 9-10) throughout the tapetal cells during anther development. The present monitoring system for autophagy offers a powerful tool to analyze the regulation of autophagy in rice tapetal cells during pollen maturation.

Keywords: autophagy; imaging; pollen maturation; rice tapetal programmed cell death.