Ginkgo pollen cones reveal ancient shared blueprint with cycads
Offer E, Moschin S, Baldan B
Plant Signaling
If you've ever walked under a Ginkgo tree and noticed its small cone-like male structures instead of flowers, you've seen a reproductive system that predates flowering plants by hundreds of millions of years, and this study decodes exactly how it builds pollen.
Ginkgo trees don't make flowers; instead, male trees grow small cones that produce pollen, using a reproductive system that's been around since before flowering plants evolved. Researchers tracked this cone development from start to finish, watching which genes switch on at each stage, from forming the pollen-making tissue to the final splitting open that releases pollen. They found that cycads, another ancient group of plants, use a strikingly similar set of genetic tools but on a different timeline, suggesting these early seed plants share a deep evolutionary toolkit for making pollen.
Key Findings
Male cone development was divided into three macro-stages (M1-M3), each with a distinct transcriptional program: primordial maintenance, microsporogenesis/tapetum activity/pollen wall formation, and pollen maturation/dehiscence.
A targeted candidate-gene analysis identified specific modules controlling tapetum differentiation, meiosis, sporopollenin biosynthesis, pollen maturation, and sex-determining-region-associated expression.
Comparison with a newly generated Cycas circinalis transcriptome revealed comparable reproductive modules shared between Ginkgo and cycads, though deployed on different developmental timelines.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists mapped the step-by-step process by which Ginkgo trees develop pollen cones, revealing a genetic blueprint that overlaps with another ancient seed plant, the cycad. The work fills in a major gap in understanding how early seed plants evolved reproduction, long before flowers existed.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Male cone development in Ginkgo biloba uncovers recurrent reproductive modules partially shared with Cycas circinalis.
The origin of seed plants transformed land plant reproduction by protecting the embryo and enabling dispersal across diverse ecosystems. Yet many reproductive mechanisms remain poorly resolved, as ...
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Ginkgo is a genus of non-flowering seed plants, assigned to the gymnosperms. The scientific name is also used as the English common name. The order to which the genus belongs, Ginkgoales, first appeared in the Permian, 270 million years ago, and Ginkgo is now the only living genus within the orde...