Virulence of Staphylococcus epidermidis is mainly attributed to surface colonization and biofilm formation in indwelling medical devices. Physiological heterogeneity of biofilms may influence host immune response and sensitivity to antibiotics. Dormant cells, among others, contribute to biofilm heterogeneity. The aim of this study was to identify immunogenic proteins of S. epidermidis biofilms ...

Malignant cancers that lead to fatal outcomes for patients may remain dormant for very long periods of time. Although individual mechanisms such as cellular dormancy, angiogenic dormancy and immunosurveillance have been proposed, a comprehensive understanding of cancer dormancy and the "switch" from a dormant to a proliferative state still needs to be strengthened from both a basic and clinical...

We identified a new role of phytochrome in mediating germination responses to seasonal cues and thereby identified for the first time a gene involved in maternal environmental effects on germination. We examined the germination responses of a mutant, hy2-1, which is deficient in the phytochrome chromophore. The background genotype, Landsberg erecta (Ler), lacked dormancy in most treatments, whi...

Tibetan semi-wild wheat (Triticum aestivum ssp. tibetanum Shao) is one of the Chinese endemic hexaploid wheat genetic resources, distributed only in the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau of China. It has special characters, such as a hulled glume and spike disarticulation. However, seed dormancy, another important character for wheat resistance to pre-harvest sprouting, was rarely reported. Seed dormancy ...

We review our work over the past 14 years that began when we were first confronted with bimodal relapse patterns in two breast cancer databases from different countries. These data were unexplainable with the accepted continuous tumor growth paradigm. To explain these data, we proposed that metastatic breast cancer growth commonly includes periods of temporary dormancy at both the single cell p...

In contrast to most temperate woody species, apple and pear and some other woody species of the Rosaceae family are insensitive to photoperiod, and no alternative environmental seasonal signal is known to control their dormancy. We studied growth and dormancy induction in micropropagated plants of four apple (Malus pumila Mill.) and one pear (Pyrus communis L.) commercial rootstock cultivars in...

Association of seed dormancy with shattering, awn, and black hull and red pericarp colors enhances survival of wild and weedy species, but challenges the use of dormancy genes in breeding varieties resistant to preharvest sprouting. A phenotypic selection and recurrent backcrossing technique was used to introduce dormancy genes from a wild-like weedy rice to a breeding line to determine their e...

Summer dormancy is an evolutionary response that some perennial cool-season grasses adopted as an avoidance strategy to escape summer drought and heat. It is correlated with superior survival after severe summer droughts in many perennial grass species originating from Mediterranean environments. Understanding the genetic mechanism and environmental determinants of summer dormancy is important ...

Seed dormancy determines the timing of germination, thereby contributing to successful seedling establishment and plant fitness. The induction and release of dormancy are controlled by various regulators like plant hormones and dormancy proteins. The relative strengths of these regulators are influenced by environmental factors during seed maturation and storage. In the last few years additiona...

Mortality of patients with breast cancer is due overwhelmingly to metastatic spread of the disease. Although dissemination is an early event in breast cancer, extended periods of cancer cell dormancy can result in long latency of metastasis development. Deciphering the mechanisms underlying cancer cell dormancy and subsequent growth at the metastatic site would facilitate development of strateg...