Growth assay of individual pollen tubes arrayed by microchannel device

To restrict pollen tube growth to a single focal plane is an important subject to enable their accurate growth analysis under microscopic observation. In the conventional method to assay pollen tube growth, the pollen tubes grow in a disorderly manner on solid medium, rendering it impossible to observe their growth in detail. Here, we present a new method to assay pollen tube growth using poly-dimethylsiloxane microchannel device to isolate individual pollen tubes. The growth of the pollen tube is confined to the microchannel and to the same focal plane, allowing accurate microscopic observations. This methodology has the potential for analyses of pollen tube growth in microfluidic environments in response to chemical products and signaling molecules, which paves the way for various experiments on plant reproduction. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.