Self-incompatibility and Ubiquitination／26 Proteasome Pathway： A Sexual Link Revealed

Most flowering plants arebisexual with both maleand female gametes onthe same individual or flower. Self-pollination or inbreeding often leadsto a gradual decline in geneticdiversity, which can cause the wholespecies to die off during evolution.To prevent inbreeding, some plantshave evolved self-incompatibility(SI) mechanisms to recognize andreject self pollen. In self-incompat-ible plants such as petunia and Anti-rrhinum (Figure 1), pollen from thesame plant or other plant with thesame geno…