植物生理

Genome sequencing and systems biology are revolutionizing life sciences. Proteomics emerged as a fundamental technique of this novel research area as it is the basis for gene function analysis and modeling of dynamic protein networks. Here a complete proteomics platform suited for fun ...

In this first, introductory chapter, it is intended to summarize from a methodological point of view the state of the art in plant proteomics, focusing on mass spectrometry-based strategies. Thus, this chapter is mainly directed at beginners or at those trying to get into the field, rather than at th ...

The Mutator system has proved to be an invaluable tool for elucidating gene function via insertional mutagenesis. Its high copy number, high transposition frequency, relative lack of insertion specificity, and ease of use has made it the preferred method for gene tagging in maize. Recent adv ...

Localizing Ac insertions is a fundamental task in studying Ac-induced mutation and chromosomal rearrangements involving Ac elements. Researchers may sometimes be faced with the situation in which the sequence flanking one side of an Ac/Ds element is known, but the other flank is unknown. Or, a ...

We describe here protocols for isolating genes in maize using Dissociation (Ds) transposons marked with a green fluorescent protein (GFP) transgene. The introduced marker enables the phenotypic scoring of the nonautonomous element and the anchoring of unique primers on the element to ...

To mutagenize rice genomes, a two-element system is utilized. This system comprises an immobile Ac element driven by the CaMV 35S promoter, and a gene trap Ds carrying a partial intron with alternative splice acceptors fused to the GUS coding region. Rapid, large-scale generation of a Ds transpos ...

Maize Activator (Ac) is one of the prototype transposable elements of the hAT transposon superfamily, members of which were identified in plants, fungi, and animals. The autonomous Ac and nonautonomous Dissociation (Ds) elements are mobilized by the single transposase protein encoded ...

Marker genes have played a critical role in the discovery of plant transposable elements, our understanding of transposon biology, and the utility of transposable elements as tools in functional genomics. Marker traits in model plants have been useful to detect transposable elements a ...

Variable phenotypes are common in nature and in laboratory materials. Guidelines and illustrations are presented to help distinguish developmental, environmental, disease, and somatic recombination-generated variation from the phenotypes caused by transposable ele ...

Genetic mosaics, or chimeras, are individual organisms composed of cells or tissues of two or more distinct genotypes. They are experimentally useful for addressing several key biological questions. These include fate mapping through analysis of marked clonal lineages, analyzing ...

Grass genomes harbor a diverse and complex content of repeated sequences. Most of these repeats occur as abundant transposable elements (TEs), which present unique challenges to sequence, assemble, and annotate genomes. Multiple copies of Long Terminal Repeat (LTR) retrotranspos ...

The initial identification of transposable elements (TEs) was attributed to the activity of DNA transposable elements, which are prevalent in plants. Unlike RNA elements, which accumulate in the gene-poor heterochromatic regions, most DNA elements are located in the gene rich regions ...

The availability of a large amount of genomic sequences has provided unique opportunities for understanding the composition and dynamics of transposable elements (TEs) in plants. As the cost of sequencing declines, the genomic sequences of most crop plants will be available within the n ...

Research on transposable elements began nearly 100 years ago with classical genetic experiments. Remarkably, many of the activities of transposable elements, such as the ability to transpose, to induce chromosome rearrangements, to undergo cycles of activity and inactivity, and to a ...

Plant transposable elements are ubiquitous in eukaryotes. Their propensity to densely populate the genomes of many plants and animal species has put them in the focus of both structural and functional genomics. Although a number of bioinformatic software have been recently developed f ...

The large scale sequencing of insertion element flanking sequences has revolutionized reverse genetics in plant research: Insertion mutants can now simply be identified in silico by BLAST searching the resulting flanking sequence databases. The development of next-generati ...

Transposon tagging has been used successfully in a range of organisms for the cloning of mutants of interest. In species containing high copy numbers of transposable elements combined with a high transposition rate, forward cloning can be quite challenging and requires specific high-r ...

Transposable genetic elements are considered to be ubiquitous. Despite this, their mutagenic capacity has been exploited in only a few species. The main plant species are maize, Antirrhinum, and Petunia. Representatives of all three major groups of class II elements, viz., hAT-, CACTA- and Mut ...

Transposon of Oryza sativa 17 (Tos17), a Ty1-Copia Class I retroelement, is one of the few active retroelements identified in rice, the main cereal crop of human consumption and the model genome for cereals. Tos17 exists in two copies in the standard Nipponbare japonica genome (n = 12 and 379 Mb). Tos17 cop ...

Activation tagging is a high-throughput method of overexpressing genes by using an enhancer present in insertion sequences that are randomly inserted in the genome to enhance the expression of adjacent genes. Gain-of-function approaches are advantageous to identify the functions ...