Guest Editors
Giampiero Cai
University of Siena, Department of Life Sciences
A long-time pollen scientist, Dr. Giampiero Cai has studied pollen and the pollen tube, especially the cytoskeleton and cell wall. He gained his expertise within a research group historically focused on the study of reproduction in plants. At the beginning of his career, Dr. Giampiero Cai worked mainly on the cytoskeleton and cell wall. Subsequently, he expanded his research horizons by studying the metabolic aspects of pollen in relation to cell wall building. More recently, the study of such processes is channeled into the overall response of pollen during the self-incompatibility reaction. Currently, Dr. Giampiero Cai is a professor of Botany at the University of Siena, and his research interests focus on the relationship between plants, environmental stresses, and productivity, with a specific eye on the effects of environmental stresses on the reproduction of plants of agricultural interest. Much of his recent work is on the effect of environmental stresses (such as temperature stress and UV radiation-induced stress) on pollen development and pollen tube growth. The research is undertaken with a multidisciplinary approach, from metabolomics to proteomics, from genetics to microscopy.
Veronica Conti
University of Siena, Department of Life Sciences
Dr. Veronica Conti is a PhD student in Life Sciences at the University of Siena, awarded with a PEGASO fellowship funded by the Tuscany Region. She graduated (bachelor’s and master’s) in Biology from the University of Siena. Currently, she is studying Tuscan tomato cultivars subjected to drought stress through physiological, genetic, and proteomic approaches paying particular attention to the plant's response to environmental stresses during the reproductive phase. The most remarkable result is that locally adapted tomato cultivars are more resistant to drought stress compared to commercial crops, strongly supporting the value of local biodiversity. Recently, she became interested in pollen and wrote (with Prof. Giampiero Cai) a review on the subject. Her skills and knowledge include aspects of plant biochemistry and physiology and the changes occurring during conditions of abiotic stress, food biochemistry and nutraceutical compounds, germination and viability of pollen under stress
Collection Overview
Pollen is the male gametophyte of seed plants and as such is essential for plant reproduction. Since it can be easily isolated and analyzed, pollen has very often been the subject of a large and diversified number of experimental approaches, from genetic to biochemical, from cytological to ultrastructural. Pollen and pollen tube are evolutionarily recent cells with a very peculiar growth mechanism; nevertheless, a very large amount of information is currently available, especially on metabolic processes, cell wall building, cytoskeleton, ion flux, and intracellular signaling cascades. Not to be underestimated is also the study of intracytoplasmic motility, as a basis for understanding similar processes in plant cells. The ability to study this model cell system through many approaches has resulted in a wide range of experimental methods over time. The purpose of this video collection is to compile a range of methods that allow the study of pollen; we expect methods concerning the analysis of developmental mechanisms, the germination of pollen tubes, protein extraction, and gene transformation of pollen as well as ion flux analysis, to name a few. Methods for ultrastructural and cytological investigation are clearly of interest and welcome as well as methods for the analysis of the cytoskeleton and intracytoplasmic motility in living pollen. Considering the current environmental issues, we will also welcome the submission of video protocols concerning the analysis of environmental stresses on pollen.
