TCP proteins, belonging to a plant-specific transcription factors family, are known to have great functions in plant development, especially flower and leaf development. However, there is little information about this gene family in Prunus mume, which is widely cultivated in China as an ornamental and fruit tree. Here a genome-wide analysis of TCP genes was performed to explore their evolution ...

The evolution of land plants is tightly linked to the evolution of the alternation of generations. Because alternating ploidal generations share their genomes, investigating generation-biased gene expression can give insight into the evolution of life cycles in land plants. Toward this end, we describe gene expression differences associated with the alternation of isogenic sporophyte and gameto...

The life cycle of land plants involves cycling between two multicellular phases, the haploid gametophyte and the diploid sporophtye. Asexual reproductive strategies, that bypass meiosis and fertilization, have evolved in many plants representing diverse taxa among the land plant phylogeny. Apogamy is an asexual reproductive strategy that produces a sporophyte directly from a gametophyte cell wi...

The gametophyte generation of Ceratopteris richardii is being used in a number of laboratories as a model plant system for developmental studies (Chasan, 1992). It is an especially valuable system for the study of the effect of gravity on plants in that the detection and response to gravity take place in the single-celled spore during its germination. The most visible evidence of the control of...

1. In environmental sex determination (ESD) gender is decided after conception, depending on the environment, rather than being genetically fixed. ESD in plants has been mainly studied in angiosperms, where the dominant form of ESD is sexual lability. Surprisingly, ESD has rarely been studied in homosporous ferns, the only plants in which ESD is the rule, rather than the exception. 2. Here, we ...

The study of meiosis is limited because of the intrinsic nature of gametogenesis in mammals. One way to overcome these limitations would be the use of culture systems that would allow meiotic progression in vitro. There have been some attempts to culture mammalian meiocytes in recent years. In this review we will summarize all the efforts to-date in order to culture mammalian sperm and oocyte p...

Most kelps (order Laminariales) exhibit distinct temporal patterns in zoospore production, gametogenesis and gametophyte reproduction. Natural fluctuations in ambient environmental conditions influence the intrinsic characteristics of gametes, which define their ability to tolerate varied conditions. The aim of this work was to document seasonal patterns in reproduction and gametophyte growth a...