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Plant reproduction

Sex and self-denial

Many plants are self-incompatible — that is, they have mechanisms to prevent fertilization by their own pollen. A familiar and uncommonly versatile protein, ubiquitin, is found to be a central player in one such system.

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Figure 1: Rejection of self pollen by a brassica papilla cell.

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Correspondence to Ed Newbigin or Richard D. Vierstra.

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Newbigin, E., Vierstra, R. Sex and self-denial. Nature 423, 229–230 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/423229a

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