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Gamete fusion is facilitated by two sperm cell-expressed DUF679 membrane proteins

Nature Plants volume 5, pages 253–257 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Successful double fertilization in flowering plants relies on two coordinated gamete fusion events, but the underlying molecular processes are not well understood. We show that two sperm-specific DOMAIN OF UNKNOWN FUNCTION 679 membrane proteins (DMP8 and DMP9) facilitate gamete fusion, with a greater effect on sperm–egg fusion than on sperm–central cell fusion. We also show that sperm adhesion and sperm cell separation depend on egg cell-secreted EGG CELL 1 proteins.

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Fig. 1: Sperm-expressed DMP8 and DMP9 are involved in double fertilization.
Fig. 2: Single fertilization mainly relates to the central cell, whereas most unfused dmp8,9C sperm cells remain attached to the egg cell.

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All of the main data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its Supplementary Information files. Materials used in this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Q.-J. Chen (China Agricultural University, Beijing, China) for CRISPR–Cas9 vectors, F. Berger (Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Vienna, Austria), G. Drews (University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA) and M. Johnson (Brown University, Providence, RI, USA) for providing seed material and the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre (NASC) for providing T-DNA insertion lines. We are grateful to A. Hildebrand for plant care and M. Kammerer for helping with genotyping. This work is supported by the Collaborate Research Centers SFB924 (TP A04 to S.S.) and SFB960 (TP B05 to S.S.), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cell Biology and Plant Biochemistry, Biochemistry Centre Regensburg, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    Philipp Cyprys, Maria Lindemeier & Stefanie Sprunck

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  1. Philipp Cyprys
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  2. Maria Lindemeier
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  3. Stefanie Sprunck
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Contributions

S.S. conceived the project. P.C. and S.S. designed the experiments. P.C. and M.L. performed the experiments. P.C., M.L. and S.S. analysed the data. S.S. and P.C. interpreted the data and prepared the figures. S.S. wrote the manuscript with input from P.C.

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Correspondence to Stefanie Sprunck.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Reviewer accreditation: Nature Plants thanks Benjamin Podbilewicz and other anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figures 1–9, Supplementary Methods, Supplementary References and Supplementary Tables 1–3.

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Cyprys, P., Lindemeier, M. & Sprunck, S. Gamete fusion is facilitated by two sperm cell-expressed DUF679 membrane proteins. Nat. Plants 5, 253–257 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-019-0382-3

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