Heat-shock response in germinating pine pollen

Abstract

The in vitro culture of pine pollen at various temperatures reveals only a moderate degree of thermotolerance, with considerably reduced levels of growth at and above 35° C. Unlike the pollen of many previously studied species, pine pollen shows some ability to recover from short periods of growth at temperatures as high as 40° C, especially when such exposures occur during the early stages of pollen germination. The pollen of Pinus taeda, unlike that of most other species, shows both quantitative and qualitative changes in the proteins synthesized during germination in vitro following a switch to elevated temperatures (37° C). This response, which can be elicited both during the very early stages of germination as well as during the later stages of pollen tube growth, is reversible following a shift back to the lower temperatures. As previously shown with vegetative tissue of other plant species, the heat-shock response not only involves the induction of high-molecular-weight proteins (most notably 82 kDa and 70 kDa proteins), but also a number of low-molecular-weight (10–20 kDa) species. Two-dimensional gel electrophoretic analysis reveals a small number of qualitative differences in the types of low-molecular-weight heat-shock proteins synthesized in pollen versus vegetative tissue.