Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is a model plant of the Solanaceae family. Various biological aspects of tomato have been investigated with molecular biological approaches, and a significant amount of DNA and protein sequencing data on tomato has been accumulated. Recently, the number of tomato genome sequences in the International Nucleotide Sequence Databases has been rapidly increasing due to ...

Trialeurodes vaporariorum Westwood (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) is an important economic pest and has a worldwide distribution. In Chile, this species been reported over large geographical area associated with tomato production. Although several plants have described as hosts of the whitefly, insect’s behavior against multiple still unclear. Therefore, objective our work was to identify host plants...

Drought is one of the limiting environmental factors that affect crop production worldwide. Understanding the molecular mechanism of drought stress is the key to developing drought tolerant crop. In this experiment we performed expression profiling of tomato plants under water deficit conditions using microarray technology. The data set we generated (available in the NCBI/GEO database under GSE...

The electron transfer molecules plastoquinone and ubiquinone are formed by the condensation of aromatic head groups with long-chain prenyl diphosphates. In the present paper we report the cloning and characterization of two genes from tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) responsible for the production of solanesyl and decaprenyl diphosphates. SlSPS (S. lycopersicum solanesyl diphosphate synthase) is t...

In the context of the study on plant defensive compounds we have isolated the main alkaloid from Hippeastrum puniceum (Amaryllidaceae), 3-O-acetyl-narcissidine (1), and its biological activities tested against two divergent insect species and several plant species. 1 was isolated from the bioactive alkaloidal fraction of H. puniceum. Its chemical structure was established by spectroscopic analy...

Our objective was to compare some plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) properties of Bacillus subtilis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa as representatives of their two genera. Solanum lycopersicum L. (tomato), Abelmoschus esculentus (okra), and Amaranthus sp. (African spinach) were inoculated with the bacterial cultures. At 60 days after planting, dry biomass for plants treated with B. subtili...

Microcomplement fixation was employed to compare the immunological differences that occur between purified inhibitor I from potato tubers, the four purified protomers that comprise it, and inhibitor I from tuber and leaf extracts. Total inhibitors of chymotrypsin and trypsin in leaves of seven genera of the Solanaceae were identified by enzymatic assay. In leaves of three genera, Solanum, Lycop...

Optimal development of root architecture is vital to the structure and nutrient absorption capabilities of any plant. We recently demonstrated that AtCLE26 regulates A. thaliana root architecture development, possibly by altering auxin distribution to the root apical meristem via inhibition of protophloem development. In addition, we showed that AtCLE26 application is able to induce a root arch...

Leaf morphology is one of the most variable, yet inheritable, traits in the plant kingdom. How plants develop a variety of forms and shapes is a major biological question. Here, we discuss some recent progress in understanding the development of compound or dissected leaves in model species, such as tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), Cardamine hirsuta and Medicago truncatula, with an emphasis on re...

Studies on the effectiveness of various sterilants and culture conditions on in-vitro seed germination in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) cv. PKM-1 revealed that among three sterilants used, surface sterilization of seeds with 5 % NaOCl for 20 minutes was found to be more effective resulting in high germination rate and contamination free cultures. Similarly among the different media and cultu...