Fossil evidence of water lilies (Nymphaeales) in the Early Cretaceous

Phylogenetic analyses have identified the water lilies (Nymphaeales: Cabombaceae and Nymphaeaceae), together with four other small groups of flowering plants (the 'ANITA clades': Amborellaceae, Illiciales, Trimeniaceae, Austrobaileyaceae), as the first diverging lineages from the main branch of the angiosperm phylogenetic tree, but evidence of these groups in the earliest phases of the angiosperm fossil record has remained elusive. Here we report the earliest unequivocal evidence, based on fossil floral structures and associated pollen, of fossil plants related to members of the ANITA clades. This extends the history of the water lilies (Nymphaeales) back to the Early Cretaceous (125-115 million years) and into the oldest fossil assemblages that contain unequivocal angiosperm stamens and carpels. This discovery adds to the growing congruence between results from molecular-based analyses of relationships among angiosperms and the palaeobotanical record. It is also consistent with previous observations that the flowers of early angiosperms were generally very small compared with those of their living relatives.     

Identification of diploid endosperm in an early angiosperm lineage

In flowering plants, the developmental and genetic basis for the establishment of an embryo-nourishing tissue differs from all other lineages of seed plants. Among extant nonflowering seed plants (conifers, cycads, Ginkgo, Gnetales), a maternally derived haploid tissue (female gametophyte) is responsible for the acquisition of nutrients from the maternal diploid plant, and the ultimate provisioning of the embryo. In flowering plants, a second fertilization event, contemporaneous with the fusion of sperm and egg to yield a zygote, initiates a genetically biparental and typically triploid embryo-nourishing tissue called endosperm. For over a century, triploid biparental endosperm has been viewed as the ancestral condition in extant flowering plants. Here we report diploid biparental endosperm in Nuphar polysepalum, a basal angiosperm. We show that diploid endosperms are common among early angiosperm lineages and may represent the ancestral condition among flowering plants. If diploid endosperm is plesiomorphic, the triploid endosperms of the vast majority of flowering plants must have evolved from a diploid condition through the developmental modification of the unique fertilization process that initiates endosperm.     

Hydatellaceae are water lilies with gymnospermous tendencies

The flowering plant family Hydatellaceae was recently discovered to be allied to the ancient angiosperm lineage Nymphaeales (water lilies). Because of its critical phylogenetic position, members of the Hydatellaceae have the potential to provide insights into the origin and early diversification of angiosperms. Here I report that Hydatella expresses several rare embryological features that, in combination, are found only in members of the Nymphaeales. At maturity, the female gametophyte is four-celled, four-nucleate and will produce a diploid endosperm, as is characteristic of most early divergent angiosperm lineages. As with all members of the Nymphaeales, endosperm in Hydatella is minimally developed and perisperm is the major embryo-nourishing tissue within the seed. Remarkably, Hydatella exhibits a maternal seed-provisioning strategy that is unique among flowering plants, but common to all gymnosperms: pre-fertilization allocation of nutrients to the embryo-nourishing tissue. This exceptional case of pre-fertilization maternal provisioning of a seed in Hydatella may well be an apomorphic feature of Hydatellaceae alone but, given the newly discovered phylogenetic position of this family, potentially represents a plesiomorphic and transitional condition associated with the origin of flowering plants from gymnospermous ancestors.     

金针菜的大孢子发生及雌配子体发育

金针菜的孢原细胞在花蕾长０．５ｃｍ左右时形成，孢原细胞直接发育为大孢子母细胞。胚珠薄珠心，蓼型胚囊。开花前，胚囊的变化是：卵细胞中具很多大淀粉粒，卵细胞和助细胞的合点端壁未完全消失；助细胞的丝状器在不同发育时期形态及大小不同；极核融合为次生核；反足细胞较早退化．对大孢子发生期间胼胝质壁的动态变化及胚囊发育中液泡的变化等进行不探讨。     

A guided tour: Pollen tube orientation in flowering plants

Sexual reproduction in flowering plants requires that two sperm cells are delivered to the embryo sac where double fertilization of an egg cell and of a central cell results in the formation of a diploid embryo and of the triploid nutritional endosperm tissue. The immobile male gametes are delivered to the im- mobile female gametophyte by a single cell, the pollen tube. The pollen tube must be able to germinate on a genetically appropriate stigma and it must be directed through the transmitting tract of the style from where it must target an ovule. Moreover, the pollen tube must enter the ovule at a defined opening, the micropyle, grow toward one of the two synergids and release the two sperm cells upon contact. This complex process requires recognition events with chemically based or physically supported cell-cell communication as well as directional cues for the growing pollen tube. A number of molecules and mechanisms have been implicated in pollen tube guidance which are summarized in this review.     

A eudicot from the Early Cretaceous of China

The current molecular systematics of angiosperms recognizes the basal angiosperms and five major angiosperm lineages: the Chloranthaceae, the magnoliids, the monocots, Ceratophyllum and the eudicots, which consist of the basal eudicots and the core eudicots. The eudicots form the majority of the angiosperms in the world today. The flowering plants are of exceptional evolutionary interest because of their diversity of over 250,000 species and their abundance as the dominant vegetation in most terrestrial ecosystems, but little is known of their very early history. In this report we document an early presence of eudicots during the Early Cretaceous Period. Diagnostic characters of the eudicot fossil Leefructus gen. nov. include simple and deeply trilobate leaves clustered at the nodes in threes or fours, basal palinactinodromous primary venation, pinnate secondary venation, and a long axillary reproductive axis terminating in a flattened receptacle bearing five long, narrow pseudo-syncarpous carpels. These morphological characters suggest that its affinities are with the Ranunculaceae, a basal eudicot family. The fossil co-occurs with Archaefructus sinensis and Hyrcantha decussata whereas Archaefructus liaoningensis comes from more ancient sediments. Multiple radiometric dates of the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation place the bed yielding this fossil at 122.6-125.8 million years old. The earliest fossil records of eudicots are 127 to 125 million years old, on the basis of pollen. Thus, Leefructus gen. nov. suggests that the basal eudicots were already present and diverse by the latest Barremian and earliest Aptian.     

Crucial function of histone lysine methylation in plant reproduction

Unlike animals, plants do not set aside germ cells early in development. In angiosperm species, reproduction occurs in the adult plant upon flowering. The multicellular male and female gametophytes differentiate from meiotic products within reproductive floral organs. Double fertilization is another remarkable feature of most angiosperm species. The zygote derived from fertilization of the egg cell by one of the sperm cells and the endosperm from fertilization of the central cell by the second sperm cell develop in a coordinated manner together and enclosed in the sporophytic maternal integuments, forming the seed. Understanding plant reproduction is biologically pertinent and agronomically and ecologically important. Here, we describe the known functions of histone lysine methylations in various steps of reproduction in the reference plant Arabidopsis thaliana. It is emerging that histone lysine methylation is key for understanding epigenetic regulation networks of genome function.     

沙枣（Elaeagnus angustifolia L.）的胚和胚乳发育

本文报道了沙枣受精前后,胚囊的结构和胚珠、胚囊中组织化学变化,以及胚和胚乳的发育,胚乳母细胞早于受精卵发育。为核型胚乳,胚乳发育早期,胚囊中富含蛋白质,胚胎发育为紫苑型,当多细胞原胚吋,胚乳开始形成细胞壁,胚细胞中含少量淀粉粒和可溶性蛋白质,这时候,胚柄极为发达,心形胚时,胚乳巳全部形成细胞壁,但局限于胚囊边缘,鱼雷形胚时,胚柄开始退化。以后,随着子叶的发育和生长,胚乳渐被吸入,接近成胚期,胚已为发达的子叶所取代,沙枣为无胚乳种子,成胚的子叶发达,于基部外方具一舌状物。     

植物激素调控籽粒大小的研究进展

植物种子的大小和品质是影响农作物产量的主要因素之一,研究控制种子籽粒大小发育的相关因素,对提高农作物产量具有重要意义.近年通过分析种子发育缺陷突变体或QTL等分子遗传学的方法,发现许多控制种子发育的重要基因影响着种子的大小和产量.对模式植物拟南芥和水稻的研究发现,许多调控种子发育的功能基因通过整合到植物激素的代谢或信号转导途径起作用,说明植物激素在调控籽粒发育中发挥重要作用,但有关作用的分子机理及其遗传调控网络待阐明.该文以模式植物拟南芥和水稻种子发育研究为例,着重介绍植物激素调控种子籽粒大小调控的研究进展.     

Positional variation of antipodal cells in polyembryonic rice ApⅢ before and after fertilization

The variation in the position of antipodal cells before and after fertilization in polyembryonic rice strain ApⅢ was studied by using conventional sectioning technique. It was shown that initially the three antipodal cells lie at the chalazal end of the young embryo sacs. Along with the development of embryo sac, the antipodal cells proliferate into a multicellular structure containing up to about 20 cells. Most of the cells migrate to its dorsal side when the embryo sacs turn into mature. In a few embryo sacs the antipodal cells are situated in the positions adjacent to the egg apparatus at the micropylar end, while in other sacs, they spread from the midst of the embryo sac to the micropylar end clinging to the nucellar tissue. Furthermore, it is reported for the first time that cells of some egg apparatus or proembryos disorganize when antipodal cells lie at the micropylar end, indicating that the function of the antipodal cells may vary during the embryogenesis in rice ApⅢ.     

Plant retinoblastoma homologues control nuclear proliferation in the female gametophyte

Haploid spores of plants divide mitotically to form multicellular gametophytes. The female spore (megaspore) of most flowering plants develops by means of a well-defined programme into the mature megagametophyte consisting of the egg apparatus and a central cell. We investigated the role of the Arabidopsis retinoblastoma protein homologue and its function as a negative regulator of cell proliferation during megagametophyte development. Here we show that three mutant alleles of the gene for the Arabidopsis retinoblastoma-related protein, RBR1 (ref. 4), are gametophytic lethal. In heterozygous plants 50% of the ovules are aborted when the mutant allele is maternally inherited. The mature unfertilized mutant megagametophyte fails to arrest mitosis and undergoes excessive nuclear proliferation in the embryo sac. Supernumerary nuclei are present at the micropylar end of the megagametophyte, which develops into the egg apparatus and central cell. The central cell nucleus, which gives rise to the endosperm after fertilization, initiates autonomous endosperm development reminiscent of fertilization-independent seed (fis) mutants. Thus, RBR1 has a novel and previously unrecognized function in cell cycle control during gametogenesis and in the repression of autonomous endosperm development.     

Cytological mechanisms of interspecific incrossability and hybrid sterility between Oryza sativa L. and O. alta Swallen

Oryza sativa and O. alta belong to AA and CCDD genomes in Oryza, respectively. Interspecific repro-ductive isolation limits the transfer of favorable genes from O. alta into O. sativa. The cytological mechanisms of interspecific incrossability and hybrid sterility between O. sativa and O. alta were studied systematically in this paper. We indentified two cytological causes of interspecific incrossabil-ity. First, we observed embryo sac incompatibility that caused fertilization barriers of variable severity such as non-fertilization, fertilization stagnation and egg cell single-fertilization. Second, we observed hybrid inviability, the major cause for incrossability, apparent from hybrid embryo developmental stagnation and embryo abortion. Hybrid sterility included both embryo sac sterility and pollen sterility. The hybrid embryo sac was completely sterile and exhibited mainly embryo sac degeneration. Hybrid pollen was also sterile and mainly typical abortive. Hybrid sterility was mainly caused by severely ab-normal meioses of megasporocytes and pollen mother cells; it is the most important abnormality, being chromosome sterility. Several methods are suggested to overcome the interspecific reproductive iso-lation between O. sativa and O. alta.     

秦艽胚珠发育中淀粉动态的研究

应用树脂薄切片的甲苯胺兰Ｏ－ＰＡＳ反应结合苏木精整体染色法，对秦艽胚珠发育过程中淀粉动态进行了研究，结果如下：胚珠发育早期，其任何部位均未见淀粉料，稍后首先在合点区出现淀粉粒，再从合点向珠孔端逐渐扩大分布范围，开花前，珠被细胞中出现淀粉积累的两个高峰：大孢子母细胞时期；成熟胚囊时期，珠被细胞中淀粉粒增长迅速，数量多，个体大。胚囊成熟时，卵细胞内，次生核周围也积累许多淀粉粒。受精后，珠被及胚囊内淀粉     

Horsetails and ferns are a monophyletic group and the closest living relatives to seed plants

Most of the 470-million-year history of plants on land belongs to bryophytes, pteridophytes and gymnosperms, which eventually yielded to the ecological dominance by angiosperms 90 Myr ago. Our knowledge of angiosperm phylogeny, particularly the branching order of the earliest lineages, has recently been increased by the concurrence of multigene sequence analyses. However, reconstructing relationships for all the main lineages of vascular plants that diverged since the Devonian period has remained a challenge. Here we report phylogenetic analyses of combined data--from morphology and from four genes--for 35 representatives from all the main lineages of land plants. We show that there are three monophyletic groups of extant vascular plants: (1) lycophytes, (2) seed plants and (3) a clade including equisetophytes (horsetails), psilotophytes (whisk ferns) and all eusporangiate and leptosporangiate ferns. Our maximum-likelihood analysis shows unambiguously that horsetails and ferns together are the closest relatives to seed plants. This refutes the prevailing view that horsetails and ferns are transitional evolutionary grades between bryophytes and seed plants, and has important implications for our understanding of the development and evolution of plants.     

吉安市园林植物初步调查及其多样性研究

通过实地踏查,对吉安市(吉州区和青原区)园林植物的种类组成、生活型、观赏特征和园林用途等进行了调查研究。结果表明:吉安市园林植物物种多样性丰富,有园林植物76科148属188种(含变种,不含品种),其中裸子植物有7科17属20种,被子植物69科131属168种,分别占总种数的10.63%和89.36%。组成吉安市园林植物的优势科较少,优势科园林植物种数占吉安市园林植物总种数的37.76%。吉安市园林植物的生活型多样,乔木52种,灌木74种,草本61种,分别占吉安市园林植物总种数的27.65%、39.36%和32.45%。吉安市园林植物观赏功能类型多样,主要可分为观叶类、观花类、观果类、观树形类、藤蔓类和香木(花)类等6类。吉安市园林植物园林用途多样,主要有行道树类、孤散植类、庭荫树类、风景林木类、花灌木类、绿篱类、垂直绿化类、草坪地被类和花坛花境类。     

小鼠原始生殖细胞的发生部位和迁移路线的初步研究

我们用碱性磷酸酶法对小鼠原始生殖细胞的发生部位和迁移路线进行了研究。在7天18小时的胚胎中没有发现原始生殖细胞,至8天8小时,在尿囊柄基部和原条尾端出现了成群集中的原始生殖细胞,这时原始生殖细胞总数目不超过100个。9天,原始生殖细胞沿后肠在肠壁内胚层细胞之间向前迁移。9天10小时部分原始生殖细胞进入背肠系膜。甲苯胺蓝染色显示原始生殖细胞嗜碱性强,与周围体细胞有着明显差别,其分布位置与碱性磷酸酶法显示出的位置一致。本实验表明,小鼠原始生殖细胞的最早出现部位是在尿囊柄基部。     

植物离体成花及其与整体成花的比较研究

成花机理问题长期以来受到人们的关注,不仅因为它是生物学的基本问题之一,而且因为成花生理研究的任何进展都将对生产实践产生特别重要的影响。目前,离体成花研究的报道大致反映了以下几方面的研究结果:(1)试管内培养物成花;(2)外植体种类和性状对成花的影响;(3)营养供应、外源激素和环境条件对试管成花的影响;(4)外植体培养物成花前后的内源多胺、激素、蛋白质、核酸等的变化。这表明离体成花研究的内容已经比较广泛而丰富,但人们还没有充分掌握外植体成花的规律。本文对离体成花的研究结果进行了比较系统的探讨,并与整体成花加以比较,以便进一步使离体实验能在成花研究中更好地发挥作用。     

Bypassing genomic imprinting allows seed development

In developing progeny of mammals the two parental genomes are differentially expressed according to imprinting marks, and embryos with only a uniparental genetic contribution die. Gene expression that is dependent on the parent of origin has also been observed in the offspring of flowering plants, and mutations in the imprinting machinery lead to embryonic lethality, primarily affecting the development of the endosperm-a structure in the seed that nourishes the embryo, analogous to the function of the mammalian placenta. Here we have generated Arabidopsis thaliana seeds in which the endosperm is of uniparental, that is, maternal, origin. We demonstrate that imprinting in developing seeds can be bypassed and viable albeit smaller seedlings can develop from seeds lacking a paternal contribution to the endosperm. Bypassing is only possible if the mother is mutant for any of the FIS-class genes, which encode Polycomb group chromatin-modifying factors. Thus, these data provide functional evidence that the action of the FIS complex balances the contribution of the paternal genome. As flowering plants have evolved a special reproduction system with a parallel fusion of two female with two male gametes, our findings support the hypothesis that only with the evolution of double fertilization did the action of the FIS genes become a requirement for seed development. Furthermore, our data argue for a gametophytic origin of endosperm in flowering plants, thereby supporting a hypothesis raised in 1900 by Eduard Strasburger.     

不同生长期淡竹叶片解剖结构及其光响应研究

【目的】探讨淡竹开花期间不同形态叶片显微结构的差异,对比分析淡竹开花期间佛焰苞显微结构及其光响应的变化,阐明淡竹开花期间叶片衰老机制。【方法】取淡竹未开花竹株营养叶、开花竹株营养叶以及不同开花时期佛焰苞,70%FAA固定,石蜡切片后用于显微结构观察。戊二醛固定,常规电镜制片用于透射电镜观察。同时,对不同时期叶片进行光合速率测定。【结果】淡竹花期内,随着花的不断发育,佛焰苞厚度、相邻维管束间距离及维管束横截面积不断降低。佛焰苞叶绿体有明显的淀粉粒、类囊体、基质片层及嗜锇颗粒的存在,开花后期佛焰苞中叶绿体结构崩溃。淡竹开花后期3种不同功能叶片最大光合速率分别下降了87.03%、62.48%和55.00%。【结论】淡竹开花期间,随着花的不断发育,叶片维管束面积与数量减小,叶片合成及运输营养物质的能力减弱,叶片逐渐衰老脱落,进而造成竹株死亡。     

Live birth in the Devonian period

The extinct placoderm fishes were the dominant group of vertebrates throughout the Middle Palaeozoic era, yet controversy about their relationships within the gnathostomes (jawed vertebrates) is partly due to different interpretations of their reproductive biology. Here we document the oldest record of a live-bearing vertebrate in a new ptyctodontid placoderm, Materpiscis attenboroughi gen. et sp. nov., from the Late Devonian Gogo Formation of Australia (approximately 380 million years ago). The new specimen, remarkably preserved in three dimensions, contains a single, intra-uterine embryo connected by a permineralized umbilical cord. An amorphous crystalline mass near the umbilical cord possibly represents the recrystallized yolk sac. Another ptyctodont from the Gogo Formation, Austroptyctodus gardineri, also shows three small embryos inside it in the same position. Ptyctodontids have already provided the oldest definite evidence for vertebrate copulation, and the new specimens confirm that some placoderms had a remarkably advanced reproductive biology, comparable to that of some modern sharks and rays. The new discovery points to internal fertilization and viviparity in vertebrates as originating earliest within placoderms.