Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Plant reproduction

Sex and self-denial

Nature volume 423, pages 229–230 (2003)Cite this article

Many plants are self-incompatible — that is, they have mechanisms to prevent fertilization by their own pollen. A familiar and uncommonly versatile protein, ubiquitin, is found to be a central player in one such system.

Ubiquitin is certainly living up to its name. This small protein, first named because of its seemingly ubiquitous presence in animal and plant cells, now seems to be an almost universal regulator molecule. Ubiquitin attaches to a multitude of other proteins, and its well-known role is as a tag that directs unwanted proteins to the machinery that eliminates them. But ubiquitin attachment is also turning out to influence events as diverse as gene transcription and the movement of proteins and other large molecules around a cell1,2. In plants, ubiquitin is known to be involved in regulating responses to hormones and light, in the formation of seeds and flowers, and in the entrainment of circadian rhythms and defence against invading microbes. But there's more. As described in The Plant Cell, a group led by Daphne Goring — Stone et al.3 — now show that ubiquitin also helps to regulate mate selection in plants.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Rejection of self pollen by a brassica papilla cell.

References

  1. Pickart, C. M. Mol. Cell 8, 499–504 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Vierstra, R. D. Trends Plant Sci. 8, 135–142 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Stone, S. L., Anderson, E. M., Mullen, R. T. & Goring, D. R. Plant Cell 15, 885–898 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Dickinson, H. Sex. Plant Reprod. 8, 1–10 (1995).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Schopfer, C. R., Nasrallah, M. E. & Nasrallah, J. B. Science 286, 1697–1700 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Takayama, S. et al. Nature 413, 534–538 (2001).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Gu, T., Mazzurco, M., Sulaman, W., Matias, D. D. & Goring, D. R. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 95, 382–387 (1998).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Stone, S. L., Arnoldo, M. & Goring, D. M. Science 286, 1729–1731 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Ushijima, K. et al. Plant Cell 15, 771–781 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Entani, T. et al. Genes Cells 8, 203–213 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Plant Cell Biology Research Centre, School of Botany, University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    Ed Newbigin

  2. the Department of Genetics, 445 Henry Mall, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, 53706, Wisconsin, USA

    Richard D. Vierstra

Authors
  1. Ed Newbigin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Richard D. Vierstra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ed Newbigin or Richard D. Vierstra.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Newbigin, E., Vierstra, R. Sex and self-denial. Nature 423, 229–230 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/423229a

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/423229a

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing