Abstract
ANGIOSPERM pollen grains have enzymes which are readily leached out by water. The release begins within minutes of immersion, and is not related to the germination of the grains and the growth of the pollen tube, for it occurs in media which inhibit germination1. If the enzymes were derived from within the pollen protoplast, the rapid leachability would seem to indicate a remarkable permeability of the plasmalemma to proteins. But another possibility is that enzymes and other proteins are situated extracellularly in the pollen grain wall, which has been observed before2. We report here the storage of various hydrolytic enzymes in the pollen walls of ten species of flowering plants, and show that the site of deposition is the cellulosic intine in walls of several different structural types.
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KNOX, R., HESLOP-HARRISON, J. Cytochemical Localization of Enzymes in the Wall of the Pollen Grain. Nature 223, 92–94 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1038/223092a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/223092a0
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