A Practical Guide to Live-Cell Imaging of Meiosis in Arabidopsis

Plants are powerful model systems to study meiosis. Our knowledge about the cytology of plant meiosis is mainly based on the analysis of fixed material. Although highly informative, this approach is limited in understanding the dynamics of meiosis. Here, we present a step-by-step instruction for a newly developed method to follow meiosis in male meiocytes of Arabidopsis in real time by confocal laser scanning microscopy. We envision that this method can be easily translated to other plant species and especially crops (e.g., Brassica, maize, and potato).