A genetic study of heat stress effects on sexual reproduction in Arabidopsis

Heat waves during summer days affect plant reproduction in various aspects including flowering time, pollen development, pollen germination and pollen tube growth, and accumulation of storage compounds during seed filling. Because heat stress has a strong impact on seed production, it is critically important to improve crop heat tolerance during the reproductive phase. The effects of heat on CENH3-mediated haploid induction system, pollen development of rrb1 mutant and meiosis process in different ecotypes of Arabidopsis were studied and described in the presented PhD thesis. The goals of this PhD work included unravelling the underlying mechanism of heat inducing seed abortion during haploid induction cross, investigating the possible link between protein synthesis and pollen heat tolerance and identifying the genetic regulator of meiotic heat sensitivity. With the visualization of heat effects on various reproductive phases in different backgrounds, this work might extend the application of the CENH3-based haploid induction system to other crops and help improving the breeding of plant heat tolerance