Tag: Genetics

Clamydomonas reinhardtii is the most thoroughly characterized unicellular alga. Like yeast, it is a single-celled eukaryotic organism that is easy to culture, and it lives predominantly in its haploid form but is readily mated for genetic studies. Additionally, it is light-responsive,  photosynthetic,…

The world demands food, plant scientists and breeders have the challenge of feeding a growing population. In a recent review Hickey et al. summarize the state-of-the-art technologies used for crop improvement. In use since 2003, ‘speed breeding’ is a set of improved methods for fast-tracking plant…

The 12 Principles of Plant Biology are a framework to support understanding of the critical roles of plants to create, improve and sustain life. These 12 inquiry-based activities were by Jane Ellis, Mary Williams, and Jeffrey Coker with support from the ASPB Education Foundation. They were developed…

Trichomes (plant hairs), arise from epidermal cells of plants. The molecular mechanism involved in the development of trichomes of plants has been well studied in Arabidopsis thaliana. In this paper, Chopra et al.  have identified key regulators of leaf trichome development in Arabis alpina, a species…

Barley leaf rust (Puccinia hordei) is a biotrophic fungus, in which mutations cause newly virulent races (pathothypes) with severe effects on cultivars. Marker-assisted Selection for Rph (Resistance to P. hordei) genes has been studied to provide sustainable control of this disease. Fazlikhani et al.…

Mango trees have been cultivated for approximately 4000 years which places their domestication in the same timeline as that of walnut, peach, sweet orange, lychee, citron, sweet orange, lemon, and jujube. Throughout the process of domestication, most crops undergo severe bottlenecks which decrease genetic…

“The 1980s were an exciting and revolutionary time for biology, and plant molecular biology in particular,” begins an editorial by Bob Goldberg, Brian Larkins, and Ralph Quatrano, the three Founding Editors of The Plant Cell. They describe why the American Society of Plant Physiologists (ASPP; later,…

Wheat is of course a hugely important food for humans, and has been selectively bred across the globe for millennia. Modern bread wheats are hexaploid and contain three distinct subgenomes (AABBDD). As with other crops, there is a need to understand wheat’s ancestry and explore the greater genetic…