植物学技术

Gene expression microarrays allow rapid and easy quantification of transcript accumulation for almost transcripts present in a genome. This technology has been utilized for diverse investigations from studying gene regulation in response to genetic or environmental fluctu ...

Co-expression analysis allows experimenters to re-use archived expression microarray data to uncover previously unknown functional relationships between genes. An observation that a group of genes are co-expressed across diverse experimental conditions suggests they m ...

Metabolic reactions and gene regulation are two primary processes of cells. In response to environmental changes cells often adjust the regulatory programs and shift the metabolic states. An integrative investigation and modeling of these two processes would improve our understa ...

Advances in modern technologies have facilitated high-dimensional experiments (HDEs) that generate tremendous amounts of genomic, proteomic, and other “omic” data. HDEs involving whole-genome sequences and polymorphisms, expression levels of genes, protein abundance m ...

Important patterns can be found in strings of characters such as nucleotides in a DNA sequence by examining the frequency of occurrence of specific character combinations or words. The abundance of words can reveal the presence of underlying trends governing the order of characters, even if t ...

The shoot apical meristem (SAM) of higher plants represents a dynamic network of different cell types which exhibit distinct patterns of gene expression and cellular behaviors. The regulation of distinct patterns of gene expression and cellular behaviors is mediated by cell–cell com ...

Morphological phenotypes due to mutations frequently provide key information about the biological function of the affected genes. This has long been true of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, though phenotypes are known for only a minority of this model organism's approximately 25,000 g ...

Plants communicate with their surrounding ecosystems using a diverse array of volatile metabolites that are indicative of the physiological status of the emitter. A variety of systems have been adapted to capture, analyze, identify, and quantify airborne metabolites released by pla ...

Chemical genomics (i.e., genomics-scale chemical genetics) approaches are based on the ability of low-molecular-mass molecules to modify biological processes. Such molecules are used to affect the activity of a protein or a pathway in a manner that is tunable and reversible. A major advant ...

The recent development of analytic technologies allows fast analysis of metabolism in real time. Fluxomics aims to define the genes involved in regulation of flux through a metabolic or signaling pathway. Flux through a metabolic or signaling pathway is determined by the activity of its ind ...

Systems biology is a comprehensive means of creating a complete understanding of how all components of an organism work together to maintain and procreate life. By quantitatively profiling one at a time, the effect of thousands and millions of genetic and environmental perturbations on the ...

Plant embryo development is a complex process that includes several coordinated events. Maize mature embryos consist of a well-differentiated embryonic axis surrounded by a single massive cotyledon called scutellum. Mature embryo axis also includes lateral roots and several de ...

Embryogenesis in higher plants consists of two major phases, morphogenesis and maturation. Morphogenesis involves the establishment of the embryo’s body plan, whereas maturation involves cell expansion and accumulation of storage macromolecules to prepare for desiccatio ...

Somatic embryogenesis, the process in which embryos, similar in morphology to their zygotic counterparts, are induced to develop in culture from somatic cells, is a suitable model system for investigating the regulation of embryo development. Through this process, a large number of embr ...

Promoter trapping is a particular gene trap strategy that represents a valuable tool for the discovery of specific cell-type markers. The principle is to generate a collection of transgenic lines with random insertions of a promoter-less reporter gene and to screen for specific reporter a ...

Embryogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana depends on the proper establishment and maintenance of local auxin accumulation. In the course of elucidating the connections between developmental progress and auxin distribution, several techniques have been developed to investig ...

Plasmodesmata provide routes for communication and nutrient transfer between plant cells by interconnecting the cytoplasm of adjacent cells. A simple fluorescent tracer-loading assay was developed to monitor patterns of cell to cell transport via plasmodesmata specifical ...

Programmed cell death (PCD) is an integral part of embryogenesis. In plant embryos, PCD functions during terminal differentiation and elimination of the temporary organ, suspensor, as well as during establishment of provascular system. Embryo abortion is another example of embryon ...

Methods have been developed to isolate gametes of higher plants and to fertilize them in vitro. Zygotes, embryos, fertile plants and endosperm can now be obtained from in vitro fusion of pairs of sperm and egg cells and of pairs of sperm and central cells, respectively. This allows examination of the ea ...

Barley microspore embryogenesis represents an attractive system to study stress-induced cell differentiation and is a valuable tool for efficient plant breeding. In contrast to zygotic embryogenesis, all developmental stages are freely accessible at a large scale for observa ...