Abstract
The ability of microspores or young pollen grains (male gametophytes) to undergo developmetal switch to embryogenic (sporophytic) pathway exemplifies the concept of totipotency as applied to haploid posmeiotic cells. As a first step pollen is devoid of positional information provided in situ by the intact anther - by isolation and cultivation in vitro in artificial media. This is inevitably accompanied by some degree of stress response in microspore/pollen. It has been shown in both monocots and dicots that intentional stress treatment (mostly starvation or heat shock) greatly stimulates embryo induction rate. Using transgenic sHSP antisense Nicotiana tabacum we show that expression of small heat shock proteins is an integral part of successful embryo and later haploid plant production from pollen grains. Our recently published data show that sHSP chaperone function is optimal in the absence of ATP.