Defining the developmental program leading to meiosis in maize

Following meiosis in maize Plants do not set aside a germ-cell lineage from early development as animals do, but instead generate germ cells on demand. Nelms and Walbot, working in maize, took advantage of a size differential between somatic and developing germ cells in the anthers at the top of the maize plant to isolate individual germ cells during the meiotic progression to pollen development. They used single-cell RNA sequencing to study changes in the transcriptome through meiosis. These studies revealed increasing specialization as meiosis progressed, with a reorganization of the transcriptome in a transition during the leptotene stage of meiosis. Science , this issue p. 52