植物生理

Reporter genes are commonly used m prokaryotes and eukaryotes to measure promoter activity of a gene of interest Transgenic organisms have to be generated by transformation with a chimertc gene consisting of the respective promoter and the coding sequence of the reporter gene. The activi ...

As the plant genomics era progresses and post-genomic functional research rapidly expands, varied genetic resources of unprecedented power and scope are being developed. Partially by the mandate of public funding, these resources are being shared via stock centers and private labor ...

The flower is a hallmark feature that has contributed to the evolutionary success of land plants. Diverse mutagenic agents have been employed as a tool to genetically perturb flower development and identify genes involved in floral patterning and morphogenesis. Since the initial studi ...

Analysis of gene activity with high spatial resolution is a prerequisite for deciphering regulatory networks which underlie developmental programs. Over many years, in situ hybridization has become the gold standard for the identification of in vivo expression patterns of endoge ...

The β-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene system is an important technique with versatile uses in the study of flower development. Transcriptional and translational GUS fusions are used to characterize gene and protein expression patterns, respectively, during reproductive de ...

Assessing the molecular changes that occur over the course of flower development is hampered by difficulties in isolating sufficient amounts of floral tissue at specific developmental stages. This is especially problematic when investigating molecular events at very early sta ...

Growing tips of plants harbor a set of stem cells in structures called shoot apical meristems (SAMs) which provide cells for development of aboveground biomass. Despite a periodic differentiation of stem cell progenitors into leaves, the stem cell pool remains constant over time. Genetic a ...

Real-time, or quantitative, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), is a powerful method for rapid and reliable quantification of mRNA abundance. Although it has not featured prominently in flower development research in the past, the availability of novel tech ...

Determining gene function through reverse genetics has been an important experimental approach in the field of flower development. The method largely relies on the availability of knockout lines for the gene of interest. Insertional mutagenesis can be performed using either T-DNA or t ...

The generation of dominant gain-of-function mutants through activation tagging is a forward genetic approach that complements the screening of loss-of-function mutants and that has been successfully applied to studying the mechanisms of flower development. In addition, the fun ...

Genome-wide study of gene expression, or transcriptome profiling, is critical for our understanding of biological functions, including developmental processes. Recent breakthroughs in high-throughput sequencing technologies have revolutionized gene expression p ...

Over the past 20 years, classic genetic approaches have shown that the developmental program underlying flower formation involves a large number of transcriptional regulators. However, the target genes of these transcription factors, as well as the gene regulatory networks they con ...

The aboveground tissues of higher plants are derived from a small population of stem cells located at the shoot apex within a structure called the shoot apical meristem (SAM). The SAM not only includes the stem cells but also incorporates a region from which lateral organs arise. The SAM is therefore of ...

Understanding how genotypes map unto phenotypes implies an integrative understanding of the processes regulating cell differentiation and morphogenesis, which comprise development. Such a task requires the use of theoretical and computational approaches to integrate and ...

Carpels are the female reproductive organs of the flower, organized in a gynoecium, which is arguably the most complex organ of a plant. The gynoecium provides protection for the ovules, helps to discriminate between male gametophytes, and facilitates successful pollination. After fer ...

Plants typically produce numerous flowers whose meiotic chromosomes are relatively easy to observe, making them excellent structures for studying the cellular processes underlying meiosis. In recent years, breakthroughs in light and electron microscopic technologies for ...

Almost three decades of genetic and molecular analyses have resulted in detailed insights into many of the processes that take place during flower development and in the identification of a large number of key regulatory genes that control these processes. Despite this impressive progr ...

The flower itself, which comprises most of the evolutionary innovations of flowering plants, bears special significance for understanding the origin and diversification of angiosperms. The sudden origin of angiosperms in the fossil record poses unanswered questions on both the o ...

Grasses bear unique flowers lacking obvious petals and sepals in special inflorescence units, the florets and the spikelet. Despite this, grass floral organs such as stamens and lodicules (petal homologs) are specified by ABC homeotic genes encoding MADS domain transcription factor ...

A complete understanding of the genetic control of flower development requires a comparative approach, involving species from across the angiosperm lineage. Using the accessible model plant Arabidopsis thaliana many of the genetic pathways that control development of the repro ...