Fuente: WIPO "tomato" Rising global temperatures negatively impact crop yields by inhibiting seed and fruit production, primarily due to the vulnerability of pollen tube (PT) delivery of sperm cells to ovules under heat stress (HS). Two in vivo assays were developed to investigate how various HS conditions affect pollen-pistil interactions in Arabidopsis, revealing that HS impairs multiple stages of PT growth: pollen germination, growth in the transmitting tract, emergence from the transmitting tract, and ovule targeting, and seed formation. Increased temperatures progressively halted PT growth earlier in its journey toward the ovules. This disruption of pollen-pistil interactions may contribute to reduced crop yields under HS. Additionally described are expression cassettes designed to generate heat-tolerant plants by overexpressing LLG, offering a potential solution to mitigate the adverse effects of heat stress on crop production.