U2AF (U2 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein auxiliary factor) is an essential splicing factor with critical roles in recognition of the 3'-splice site. In animals, the U2AF small subunit (U2AF35) can bind to the 3'-AG intron border and promote U2 small nuclear RNP binding to the branch-point sequences of introns through interaction with the U2AF large subunit. Two copies of U2AF35-encoding genes w...

Small peptides secreted to the extracellular matrix control many aspects of the plant's physiological activities which were identified in Arabidopsis thaliana, called ATSPs. Here, we isolated and characterized the small peptide gene Bna.SP6 from Brassica napus. The BnaC.SP6 promoter was cloned and identified. Promoter deletion analysis suggested that the -447 to -375 and -210 to -135 regions ar...

We conducted a functional analysis of seed dispersal and its plasticity in response to density in Arabidopsis thaliana by growing morphologically diverse ecotypes under high and low density and measuring seed dispersion patterns under controlled conditions. Maternal plant architectural traits such as height and branching, and fruit traits such as dehiscence and silique length influenced various...

Oilseed rape (Brassica napus) is sexually compatible with its wild and weedy relative B. rapa, and introgression of genes from B. napus has been found to occur over a few generations. We simulated the early stages of transgene escape by producing F1 hybrids and the first backcross generation between two lines of transgenic B. napus and two populations of weedy B. rapa. Transgene expression and ...

The advent of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) strengthened our capacity for small RNA (sRNA) discovery. Here, we did a transcriptome-wide survey of sRNAs, mainly focusing on the microRNAs, with organ-specific expression patterns in both Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and rice (Oryza sativa). By using sRNA HTS data generated by 454 sequencing technology, four organs in Arabidopsis (i.e. six...

The accumulation of starch within photosynthetic tissues and within dedicated storage organs has been characterized extensively in many species, and a function in buffering carbon availability or in fueling later growth phases, respectively, has been proposed. However, developmentally regulated starch turnover within heterotrophic tissues other than dedicated storage organs is poorly characteri...

Genes transformed into plants are usually inherited in a regular Mendelian manner. There are, however, transformants in which the selectable trait fails to segregate as expected. Genetic analysis of the kanamycin-resistance (KanR) trait in >900 independent transformants of Arabidopsis revealed that 9% produced progeny families with an enormous deficiency of KanR individuals. Self-pollination of...

Cytokinin oxidase/dehydrogenases (CKXs) play a critical role in the irreversible degradation of cytokinins, thereby regulating plant growth and development. Brassica napus is one of the most widely cultivated oilseed crops worldwide. With the completion of whole-genome sequencing of B. napus, genome-wide identification and expression analysis of the BnCKX gene family has become technically feas...

We examined the expression of a family of Arabidopsis response regulators (ARR) and found that the steady-state levels of RNA for most are elevated very rapidly by cytokinin. Using nuclear run-on assays we demonstrated that this increase in ARR transcript levels in response to cytokinin is due, at least in part, to increased transcription. The start site of transcription for the ARR5 gene was i...