MOLECULAR MECHANISMS OF SELF-INCOMPATIBILITY IN FLOWERING PLANTS AND FUNGI DIFFERENT MEANS TO THE SAME END

Hermaphrodite flowering plants and fungi face the same sexual dilemma - how to avoid self-fertilization. Both have evolved ingenious recogni tion systems that reduce or eliminate the possibility of selfing. Thes e self-incompatibility (SI) systems offer unique opportunities to stud y recognition and signalling in non-animal cells and also represent mo del systems for studying the evolution of breeding systems at a molecu lar level. In this review, the authors discuss recent molecular data t hat predict an astonishing diversity in the cellular mechanisms of SI operating in flowering plants and fungi.