The liverwort Marchantia polymorpha is one of the most useful model plants for molecular and genetic experiments, due to efficient transformation techniques available and its haploid-dominant lifecycle. When grown under white light supplemented with far-red light, thalli form male and female reproductive organs, antheridiophores and archegoniophores, respectively. Similar to animals, M. polymorpha uses motile sperm for fertilization, and the sperm is attracted by the substance(s) released by the egg and/or the cells in its vicinity. This phenomenon, usually called as chemotaxis, has been well studied in mainly marine animals such as sea urchin and starfish, and their sperm-attracting substances, sperm chemoattractants, have been identified. However, the sperm chemoattractant of M. polymorpha is still unknown. In this study, we performed the activity-guided isolation and the structural identification of the sperm chemoattractant candidate from M. polymorpha archegoniophores. The plant materials were soaked in acetone for 1 week, and resulting supernatant was used as a crude extract. The crude extract was then applied to normal phase column chromatography. Eluted fractions were applied to the chemotaxis assay using sperm freshly collected from male plants. Active fractions were subsequently applied to reverse phase column chromatography, followed by preparative HPLC. Finally, a single peak which showed sperm-attracting activity was obtained, suggesting that this compound is a promising candidate of the sperm chemoattractant of M. polymorpha. The identification of the isolated compound is now in progress, and in the presentation, we discuss details in the characteristics of the compound.

Purification and identification of a putative sperm chemoattractant in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha L

2019 Fall National Meeting

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