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The germinated pollen tube must drill its way through the nutrient-rich style and curl to the bottom of the ovary to reach an ovule. Once the pollen tube reaches an ovule, it bursts to deliver the two sperm cells. One of the sperm cells fertilizes the egg cell which develops into an embryo, which will become the future plant.
Pollen itself is not the male gamete. [4] It is a gametophyte, something that could be considered an entire organism, which then produces the male gamete.Each pollen grain contains vegetative (non-reproductive) cells (only a single cell in most flowering plants but several in other seed plants) and a generative (reproductive) cell.
Microgametogenesis is the process of the formation of the male gametophyte. During pollination, the female gametophyte communicates with the pollen tube to ensure that it comes in contact with the ovule. [6] When contact is made, the pollen tube grows through the micropyle opening into a synergid cell, that dies when this occurs.
Pollen germination has three stages; hydration, activation and pollen tube emergence. The pollen grain is severely dehydrated so that its mass is reduced, enabling it to be more easily transported from flower to flower. Germination only takes place after rehydration, ensuring that premature germination does not take place in the anther.
During germination, the tube cell elongates into a pollen tube. In the flower, the pollen tube then grows towards the ovule where it discharges the sperm produced in the pollen grain for fertilization. The germinated pollen grain with its two sperm cells is the mature male microgametophyte of these plants. [2]
The mechanisms involved in pollen formation and development of the pollen tube are important for pollen selection as well as protein composition of the pollen. [3] Pollen surface proteins are produced in the sporophytic tissue of the anther and have expressed higher levels of purified selection with an increase in adaptive evolution from the ...
One prime example of chemotropism is seen in plant fertilization and pollen tube elongation of angiosperms, flowering plants. [4] Unlike animals, plants cannot move, and therefore need a delivery mechanism for sexual reproduction. Pollen, which contains the male gametophyte is transferred to another plant via insects or wind. [5]
After the pollen tube enters the gametophyte, the pollen tube nucleus disintegrates and the two sperm cells are released; one of the two sperm cells fertilises the egg cell (at the bottom of the gametophyte near the micropyle), forming a diploid (2n) zygote. This is the point when fertilisation actually occurs; pollination and fertilisation are ...