Ovule development in wild-type Arabidopsis and two female sterile mutants. Plant Cell 4

Ovules are complex structures that are present in all seed bearing plants and are contained within the carpels in flowering plants. Ovules are the site of megasporogenesis and megagametogenesis and, following fertilization, develop into seeds. We combined genetic methods with anatomical and morphological analyses to dissect ovule development. Here, we present a detailed description of the morphological development of Arabidopsis ovules and report on the isolation of two chemi-cally induced mutants, bell (bell) and short integuments (sinl), with altered ovule development. Phenotypic analyses indicated that bell mutants initiate a single integument-like structure that develops aberrantly. sinl mutants initiate two integuments, but growth of the integuments is disrupted such that cell division continues without normal cell elonga-tion. Both mutants can differentiate archesporial cells, but neither forms a normal embryo sac. Genetic analyses indicated that bell segregates as a single recessive mutation, and complementation tests showed that the two mutants are not allelic. The phenotypes of the mutants indicate that normal morphological development of the integuments and proper embryo sac formation are interdependent or are governed in part by common pathways. The ovule mutants that we de-scribe in Arabidopsis represent nove1 genetic tools for the study of this stage of reproductive development