Crop Science Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education
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Published in Crop Sci 24:735-739 (1984)
© 1984 Crop Science Society of America
677 S. Segoe Rd., Madison, WI 53711 USA
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Histological Features of Anthers from Normal and ms3 Mutant Soybean1

H. Nakashima, H. T. Horner and R. G. Palmer2

Anthers of male-sterile mutant (ms3) and normal soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] were compared by using a triple-staining procedure for DNA, polysaccharides and proteins, and a single-staining procedure for sporopollenin in conjunction with brightfield and fluorescent microscopy. The purpose of this study was to determine at what stage of anther development histological differences were detectable between male-sterile (ms3) and normal soybean. At the tetrad stage, a prominent greenish-blue material, visible with the triple-staining procedure, filled some of the enlarged tapetal cells of anthers of ms3 plants. This material was also autofluorescent and had an affinity for the fluorochrome primuline which identified sporopollenin. By the early microspore stage, microspores of ms3 plants were unusually enlarged and the tapetum surrounding them prematurely degenerated. This abnormality of tapetal behavior seems to be associated with microspore abortion and serves as an early marker for sterility. Other differences noted between the anthers of ms3 and normal plants with the staining procedures used, were variations in the endothecium and the thickness and degree of staining of the microspore and pollen walls. All of these differences suggest that the effect of the ms3 gene in the homozygous condition is expressed during early anther development, probably beginning at meiosis and directly influences the malfunctioning of the tapetum. The results of this study support numerous other published reports on both genetic and cytoplasmic male sterility implicating the tapetum as the primary tissue responsible for male sterility.

Key Words: Genetic male sterility • Microsporogenesis • Tapetum • Sporopollenin

1 Journal Paper no. J-11198 of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Exp. Stn., Ames; Project 2471. This work was supported in part by the Iowa Soybean Promotion Board and The World Food Inst. while Hiroshi Nakashima was an international research fellow at Iowa State Univ. during 1981-1982. The authors thank Mrs. Lillian Johnson for typing the manuscript.

2 Associate professor, Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido Univ., Sapporo, Japan; professor and director of the Bessey Microscopy Facility, Dep. of Botany, Iowa State Univ., Ames, Iowa 50011; and professor, USDA-ARS, and Deps. of Agronomy and Genetics, Iowa State Univ., Ames, Iowa 50011.

Received for publication September 26, 1983.




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