The epidermis is often considered to be the growthlimiting cell layer in young, growing herbaceous plants (Niklas, 1992). In his classic work, Green (1980) elaborated this idea further for organ development, and attributed a crucial role to the orientation of cellulose fibrils as indicator of mechanical properties. A factual proof for a relation between the mean cellulose orientation and mechan...

It has been proposed that the suppression of poleward flux within interpolar microtubule (ipMT) bundles of Drosophila embryonic spindles couples outward forces generated by a sliding filament mechanism to anaphase spindle elongation. Here, we (i) propose a molecular mechanism in which the bipolar kinesin KLP61F persistently slides dynamically unstable ipMTs outward, the MT depolymerase KLP10A a...

Seed priming is a technique which is potentially able to promote rapid and more uniform seed germination and plant growth as well. In this regards, the presowing effects of seed priming treatments were investigated on some physiological viz. seed germination, germination rate, radicle elongation, shoot elongation, radicle dry weight, shoot dry weight and vigor index. Seeds were subjected to two...

hybrid rice varieties are potentially higher yielding than the best inbred varieties and perform better under adverse conditions of drought and salinity. one of the major impediments for seed production of hybrid rice is incomplete panicle exsertion in the cytoplasmic male sterile lines. the unexserted spikelets which are left inside the flag leaf sheath remain unfertile. this research was focu...

Several eukaryotic transcription factors have been shown to modulate the elongation rate of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) on naked or chromatin-reconstituted templates in vitro. However, none of the tested factors have been shown to directly affect the elongation rate of Pol II in vivo. We performed a directed RNAi knock-down (KD) screen targeting 141 candidate transcription factors and identified...

The transcription elongation complex, once thought to be composed of merely the DNA template, RNA polymerase II and the nascent RNA transcript, is now burgeoning as a unit as multifaceted and complicated as the transcription initiation complex. Studies concentrated in defining the elongation stage of transcription during the past recent years have resulted in the discovery of a diverse collecti...

Leaf elongation rate (LER) in grasses is dependent on epidermal cell supply (number) and on rate and duration of epidermal cell elongation. Nitrogen (N) fertilization increases LER. Longitudinal sections from two genotypes of tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.), which differ by 50% in LER, were used to quantify the effects of N on the components of epidermal cell elongation and on mesophy...