Paloma Medina

The effects of light on sex determination in gametophytes

of the fern Ceratopteris richardii
Hiroyuki Kamachi Æ Orie Iwasawa Æ Leslie G. Hickok Æ, Masaaki Nakayama Æ Munenori Noguchi Æ, Hiroshi
Inoue
J Plant Res (2007) 120:629–634

1. Introduction
a) What is Ace, what produces it, and what does it do?
Although blue light did not affect sensitivity to Ceratopteris antheridiogen
(ACe) in wild-type gametophytes, it was found that the gametophytes of the
her1 mutant, which are insensitive to ACe, developed into males when grown
under blue light in the presence of ACe.
b What information lead the authors to explore the possible effect of light on the production
of male gametophytes?
Refer to A.
c) Which genes does Ace seem to affect? What is its effect on them?
The reaction under red light is greater than that of blue light.

2. Methods and Materials

a) What are WT, her1 and dkg1?
WT=wild type and her1 and dkg1 are mutation strains
b) Briefly describe the experimental procedure for culturing the spores and giving the light
treatments.
c) What were some of the controls? Were they positive or negative controls?
Preparation of Ace, Light sources, Assay of sex phenotype in C. richardii
gametophytes
d) Why were some spores grown individually?
To avoid the action of ACe. Each spore was germinated in a well containing
300 lL of the 1:4 dilution of the MS medium.

3. Results:
a) Explain what conclusions can be drawn from Table 1.
In the presence of ACe, 100% of wild-type gametophytes developed into
males, irrespective of the light conditions tested, except that only 5% of the
gametophytes became hermaphrodites under white light
b) Explain what conclusions can be drawn from Figure 2.
It was shown that red light suppressed the emergence of male ga-
metophytes compared with the dark (Fig. 2, dotted line), indicating that red
light inhibits male development. In contrast, blue light did not affect male
development compared with the dark (Fig. 2, solid line).
c) Explain what conclusions can be drawn from Figure 3.
Blue light did not affect male development even when concentrations of the
ACe preparation were only 2 lL mL–1.
 d) Explain what conclusions can be drawn from Table 2.
Gametophytes of C. richardii developed into hermaphrodites in all light
conditions when tested in the absence of ACe.

4. Discussion
a) Did the authors see an effect of light on sex determination?
in the presence of ACe, wild-type gameto- phytes developed into males
irrespective of the light con- ditions tested, and that the gametophytes
developed into hermaphrodites under any light conditions when they were
grown individually to avoid the action of ACe.
b) What was the effect of blue light on her1 gametophytes and what does this suggest?
blue light was found to induce male development in the her1 gametophytes
in the presence of ACe, although blue light did not affect male development
in the wild-type gametophytes
c) The authors suggest several possible mechanisms whereby red light exerts its effect on sex
determination. What are they?
This result suggests the action of red light is mediated by the phytochrome
system.
d) Why do the authors think C. richardii may be especially sensitive to light? C. richardii
ga- metophytes to ACe depended on the ABA content within the
gametophytes, in which ABA concentrations decrease as the spores
germinate and develop.