ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Biotechnology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1543947
Assessing Jatropha curcas pollen viability: A comparative assessment of transgenic and nontransgenic pollen under various environmental conditions using rapid staining technique
Provisionally accepted
- 1Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, Singapore, Singapore
- 2Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
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Pollen is the important vector for the transgene flow between non-transgenic plants. Several aspects of pollen biology have been investigated using pollens from X8#34 transgenic and non-transgenic Jatropha, a promising biofuel crop. Pollen viability was assessed through different staining methods and the optimized double staining method with Fluorescein Diacetate (FDA) and Propidium Iodide (PI) for Jatropha , as it can distinguishingly clearly differentiate viable and dead pollen with green and red fluorescent respectively.Among the environmental factors we tested, high temperature (35, 40 & 45°C), significant difference observed from 15 min incubation andperiod and high doses of UV-B irradiation significantly reduced Jatropha pollen viability at 12 and 15 W/m2 dosages. There is no significant difference in pollen viability between X8#34 transgenic Jatropha with non-transgenic counterpart. Under a field relevant sunny condition, pollen viability reduced to 19% in 45 min and 16% viability in non-transgenic, with complete loss of viability in 90 min for both. Under cloudy /shady atmospheric conditions, most of the Jatropha pollens (>97 %) lost their viability in 240 min. Pollen viability assessments showed that there is no statistical difference between two genotypes, X8#34 transgenic and non-transgenic Jatropha across all tested conditions. There is no significant difference in pollen viability of X8#34 transgenic Jatropha with their nontransgenic counterpart. This report is the first study on transgenic Jatropha curcas pollen viability study, we suggest that the optimized double staining technique (FDA+PI) in Jatropha and could serve bd adopted as the baseline for risk assessment of transgenic Jatropha plants.
Keywords: Pollen viability, FDA+PI combination, Jatropha pollen, X8#34 transgenic, non-transgenic
Received: 12 Dec 2024; Accepted: 28 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sampath, Yan and Ramachandran. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Srinivasan Ramachandran, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, Singapore, Singapore
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