RhoGTPase signaling in double fertilization.

Successful fertilization is a prerequisite to produce most crops. Therefore, it is important to understand fertilization on a molecular and cellular level. We use the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana to study how pollen tubes grow towards the female gametophyte to deliver the contained sperm cells. Specifically, we want to understand how pollen tubes grow polarly and how they can change their growth direction in order to find its destination. We use live cell imaging to investigate how subcellular localization and posttranslational modifications regulate the activity of proteins in the RhoGTPase signaling pathway, which is a key regulator of polar growth.