Temporal And Spatial Regulation Of Plant Genes

First attempts to isolate plant genes were for those genes that are abun dantly expressed in a particular plant organ at a specific stage of devel opment. However, many important gene products are produced in a very minute quantity and in specialized cell types. Such genes can now be isolated using a variety of approaches, some of which are described in this volume. The rapid progress during the last decade in regeneration of a number of crop plants and the availability of molecular tools to introduce foreign genes in plants is allowing the engineering of specific traits of agri cultural importance. These genes must, however, be regulated in a spatial and temporal manner in order to have desired effects on plant devel opment and productivity. The habitat of plants necessitate adaptive responses with respect to the environmental changes. Starting from germination of the seed, the plant begins to sense environmental cues such as moisture, light, temperature and the presence of pathogens, and begins to respond to them. Little is known about various signal transduction pathways that lead to biochemical and morphogenetic responses, in particular, transition from vegetative to reproductive phase. With the availability of tools to generate specific mutations via transposon tagging, identification and isolation of genes affecting these processes may be facilitated. Transfer of these genes into heterologous environments will allow understanding of the complex processes that control plant development.

Genetic Engineering of Crop Plants is a proceeding of The 49th Nottingham Easter School in Agricultural Science, which was held at Sutton Bonington on April 17-21, 1989. This symposium discussed progress in the generation of crop species resistant to herbicides, viruses, and insects. The book discusses topics such as the genetic manipulation in plants; genetic engineering of crops for insect and herbicide resistance; the expression of heat shock gene in transgenic plants; and tuber-specific gene expression. The book also covers topics such as regulation of gene expression in transgenic tomato plants; the molecular biology of pea seed development; and the regulatory elements of maize storage protein genes. The text is recommended for experts in the field of botany, agriculture, and genetics who would like to know more about the improvement of crop plants through genetics.

One of the ways to make consistent progress in a particular field of biology consists in choosing a good model system on which to focus the experimental efforts of the scientific community. It has taken a long time for scientists interested in various aspects of the life of plants to reach some sort of consensus. With the advent and impact of molecular biology, the small weed Arabidopsis is now the object of rapidly growing scientific attention. Since it is reasonable to assume that the general molecular mechanisms that are responsible for the physiological, cellular and biochemical properties of plants will be essentially conserved in all plants, it follows that these mechanisms should also operate in Arabidopsis and hence that its genome should contain most of the genes that we need to know about if we want to understand the genetic determination of the life processes in plants.Arabidopsis has a small genome and well documented genetic studies are available. It is easy to grow in large numbers and mutants defining important genetically controlled mechanisms are either available, or can readily be obtained. Various methods to introduce and express isolated homologous or heterologous genes are available. It is therefore realistic and desirable to aim at exploring the genome of this plant in very great detail. As will be illustrated in this book all the elements for such a grand strategy are in place.More and more scientists are therefore willing to accept the obvious and very real practical disadvantages resulting from its small size when experiments call for the isolation of proteins, membranes, subcellular fractions etc, in order to benefit from its extraordinary experimental advantages as a model system in molecular genetics. One can safely predict that in the next decade studies with Arabidopsis will provide major breakthroughs in our understanding of most aspects of plant physiology and developmental biology. The importance of this knowledge for plant breeding and therefore for a sustainable highly productive agriculture cannot be overestimated. We therefore expect that this book will provide valuable guidelines to all those who are planning experiments aimed at understanding various aspects of plant growth, productivity and interactions with the environment. The book offers a wealth of methodical and theoretical information as well as valuable references. It should be of use to students, teachers, as well as advanced researchers and those breeders who want to use molecular techniques in breeding.

Control of Plant Gene Expression is a comprehensive volume describing the regulation and control of specific plant genes expressed in different tissues during plant development. It addresses several fundamental aspects of plant gene regulation, including signal transduction mechanisms and the role of plant hormones. It also discusses the structure and regulation of important metabolic genes such as those involved in nitrogen and carbon assimilation, lipid biosynthesis, and secondary metabolism. The book provides excellent examples of genetic engineering applications to alter agronomically important traits, making it an essential reference volume for plant molecular biologists and plant biotechnologists. It also contains a wealth of information that will be valuable to students specializing in plant molecular biology, plant development, gene regulation in plants, molecular plant physiology, or plant biotechnology.

Plant Physiology: A Treatise, Volume X: Growth and Development explores the physiology of plant growth and development, considering the morphogenesis and morphogenetic systems, dormancy, environmental cues in plant growth and development, plant senescence, the role of hormones in growth regulation, cell division, and growth and development in space. This volume is organized into eight chapters and begins with an introduction to morphogenesis as a developmental phenotype, emphasizing the cell and the shoot. The next chapters cover events in the life of the plant, reflecting the importance of the whole plant concept to the subject, and the ways in which these events are controlled and integrated into environmental signals and events. An experimental approach to a model system for dormancy is described, and then the discussion shifts to senescence and death of plants as aspects of plant development. This volume also presents a clear and illuminating overview of the major plant growth regulators and their modes of action. This book also introduces the reader to cell division and its effect on most major developmental events after fertilization, along with the genetic analysis of development and its control by genes. The final chapter focuses on the integration of plant growth studies with the technology of space travel, which permits analysis of plant behavior in the complete absence of gravity. This book is intended for researchers, students, and specialists in related fields who wish to gain insight on the concepts and research trends in plant growth and development.

Many fungi and bacteria that associate with plants are potentially harmful and can cause disease, while others enter into mutually beneficial sym bioses. Co-evolution of plants with pathogenic and symbiotic microbes has lead to refined mechanisms of reciprocal recognition, defense and counter defense. Genes in both partners determine and regulate these mechanisms. A detailed understanding of these genes provides basic biological insights as well as a starting point for developing novel methods of crop protection against pathogens. This volume deals with defense-related genes of plants and their regulation as well as with the genes of microbes involved in their interaction with plants. Our discussion begins at the level of populations and addresses the complex interaction of plant and microbial genes in multigenic disease resistance and its significance for crop protection as compared to mono genic resistance (Chap. 1). Although monogenic disease resistance may have its problems in the practice of crop protection, it is appealing to the experimentalist: in the so-called gene-for-gene systems, single genes in the plant and in the pathogen specify the compatibility or incompatibility of an interaction providing an ideal experimental system for studying events at the molecular level (Chaps. 2 and 4). Good progress has been made in identifying viral, bacterial, and fungal genes important in virulence and host range (Chaps. 3-6). An important aspect of plant-microbe interactions is the exchange of chemical signals. Microbes can respond to chemical signals of plant origin.

The intricacies of plant growth and development present a fascinating intellectual challenge, and yet our understanding of the subject has increased relatively slowly, despite the application of many different experimental approaches. Now, however, the introduction of molecular methods, coupled with genetic transformation technology, has provided a change in pace, and fundamental advances are occurring rapidly. This volume, the second in our Plant Biotechnology series, shows how we are beginning to understand the molecular basis of plant growth and development, and are thus moving from the descriptive to the predictive stage. The ability, discussed in chapter one, to generate a fivefold change in plant height by overexpression of a single gene for the photoreceptor phytochrome heralds not only a new phase in plant photobiology but also highlights the close relationship between fundamental knowledge and commercial application. Other chapters review progress in our understanding of the molecular basis of hormone action and processes such as tuber development, seed protein synthesis and deposition, fruit ripening, and self-recognition during pollination. The successful uses of antisense genes to alter the colour and pattern of flowers and to change the enzymic composition of ripening fruit are also discussed, together with identification and down regulation of a gene involved in ethylene synthesis by antisense technology. Opportunities are considered for altering the composition and quality of harvested plant organs and for using plants to synthesise novel products.

Eminent researchers provide broad coverage of plant molecular biology and genetic engineering, detailing technological advances in plant cell transformation and responses. This state-of-the-art text includes coverage of molecular action of plant growth hormone, signal transduction, light mediated expression of genes, and genetic engineering of crop plants and trees.