Miscanthus × giganteus is exceptional among C4 plants in its ability to acclimate to chilling temperatures (≤14 °C) and maintain a high photosynthetic capacity, in turn leading to very high productivities even in cool temperate environments. To identify mechanisms that may underlie this acclimation, RNA was isolated from Miscanthus leaves exposed to chilling and non-chilling conditions, and hyb...

doi: 10.1111/j.1399-3054.2007.00879.x The most abundant copper proteins in green tissues are plastocyanin (PC) in thylakoids and copper/zinc superoxide dismutase (Cu/ZnSOD) of which the major isoforms are found in the cytosol and in the chloroplast stroma. An iron superoxide dismutase (FeSOD) can also be found in the stroma. The expression of superoxide dismutases (SODs) has been studied mainly...

Site-specific risk assessment of contaminated areas indicates prior areas for intervention, and provides helpful information for risk managers. This study was conducted in the Ervedosa mine area (Bragança, Portugal), where both underground and open pit exploration of tin and arsenic minerals were performed for about one century (1857-1969). We aimed at obtaining ecotoxicological information wit...

A sensitive, specific enzyme immunoassay (EIA) for trans-zeatin riboside (ZR) and trans-zeatin (Z) in the 0.3 to 30 picomole range has been described. The reliability of the method for measuring ZR + Z in partially purified extracts of Zea mays L. tissues was verified by highperformance liquid chromatography. EIA measurements showed that there was a concentration gradient of ZR + Z along the le...

Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) and its wild progenitor, teosinte (Z. mays ssp. parviglumis) differ dramatically in inflorescence and plant architecture despite the fact that their evolutionary divergence occurred within the past 10,000 years or less. To elucidate the genetic control of the morphological differences between maize and teosinte, my colleague and I employed quantitative trait locus map...

Despite numerous quantitative trait loci and association mapping studies, our understanding of the extent to which natural allelic series contribute to the variation for complex traits is limited. In this study, we investigate the occurrence of a natural allelic series for complex traits at the teosinte branched1 (tb1) gene in natural populations of teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, Z. mays ...

Transposons are major components of all eukaryotic genomes. Although traditionally regarded as causes of detrimental mutations, recent evidence suggests that transposons may play a role in host gene diversification and evolution. For example, host gene transduction by retroelements has been suggested to be both common and to have the potential to create new chimeric genes by the shuffling of ex...

Nucleotide diversity in the terminal ear1 (te1) gene, a regulatory locus hypothesized to be involved in the morphological evolution of maize (Zea mays ssp. mays), was investigated for evidence of past selection. Nucleotide polymorphism in a 1.4-kb region of te1 was analyzed for a sample of 26 sequences isolated from 12 maize lines, five populations of the maize progenitor, Z. mays ssp. parviglu...

Maize (Zea mays subsp mays) was domesticated from teosinte (Z. mays subsp parviglumis) through a single domestication event in southern Mexico between 6000 and 9000 years ago. This domestication event resulted in the original maize landrace varieties, which were spread throughout the Americas by Native Americans and adapted to a wide range of environmental conditions. Starting with landraces, 2...

Seed traits have been targeted by human selection during the domestication of crop species as a way to increase the caloric and nutritional content of food during the transition from hunter-gather to early farming societies. The primary seed trait under selection was likely seed size/weight as it is most directly related to overall grain yield. Additional seed traits involved in seed shape may ...