Abstract

To follow the dynamics of meiosis in the model plant Arabidopsis, we have established a live cell imaging setup to observe male meiocytes. Our method is based on the concomitant visualization of microtubules (MTs) and a meiotic cohesin subunit that allows following five cellular parameters: cell shape, MT array, nucleus position, nucleolus position, and chromatin condensation. We find that the states of these parameters are not randomly associated and identify 11 cellular states, referred to as landmarks, which occur much more frequently than closely related ones, indicating that they are convergence points during meiotic progression. As a first application of our system, we revisited a previously identified mutant in the meiotic A-type cyclin TARDY ASYNCHRONOUS MEIOSIS (TAM). Our imaging system enabled us to reveal both qualitatively and quantitatively altered landmarks in tam, foremost the formation of previously not recognized ectopic spindle- or phragmoplast-like structures that arise without attachment to chromosomes.

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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Maria A Prusicki

    Department of Developmental Biology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3755-3402
  2. Emma M Keizer

    Department of Agrotechnology and Food Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  3. Rik Peter van Rosmalen

    Department of Agrotechnology and Food Sciences; Laboratory of Systems and Synthetic Biology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6911-3298
  4. Shinichiro Komaki

    Department of Developmental Biology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1189-288X
  5. Felix Seifert

    Department of Developmental Biology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
    Competing interests
    Felix Seifert, is affiliated with CropSeq bioinformatics. The author has no other competing interests to declare.
  6. Katja Müller

    Department of Developmental Biology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Erik Wijnker

    Department of Plant Science, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  8. Christian Fleck

    Department of Agrotechnology and Food Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. Arp Schnittger

    Department of Developmental Biology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
    For correspondence
    arp.schnittger@uni-hamburg.de
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7067-0091

Funding

European Union (ITN-606956)

  • Maria A Prusicki
  • Erik Wijnker
  • Arp Schnittger

University of Hamburg (Core funding)

  • Maria A Prusicki
  • Shinichiro Komaki
  • Felix Seifert
  • Katja Müller
  • Erik Wijnker
  • Arp Schnittger

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2019, Prusicki et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Maria A Prusicki
  2. Emma M Keizer
  3. Rik Peter van Rosmalen
  4. Shinichiro Komaki
  5. Felix Seifert
  6. Katja Müller
  7. Erik Wijnker
  8. Christian Fleck
  9. Arp Schnittger
(2019)
Live cell imaging of meiosis in Arabidopsis thaliana
eLife 8:e42834.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.42834

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https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.42834