3. Key genes influencing embryogenic microspore
development
Anther culture is a rewarding experimental system for
understanding the changes caused by stress treatment of
microspores. It also allows the molecular mechanisms
triggering direct embryogenesis to be studied. The
key attribute involves genes that are expressed during
microsporogenesis and those participating in cellular
stress response with the synthesis of heat-shock proteins
(for example, HSP70; Bárány et al., 2001) and suppression
of the gametophytic program and switching to the
embryogenic (Maraschin et al., 2005).