The tonoplast intrinsic proteins TIP3;1 and TIP3;2 are specifically expressed during seed maturation and localized to the seed protein storage vacuole membrane. However, the function and physiological roles of TIP3s are still largely unknown. The seed performance of TIP3 knockdown mutants was analysed using the controlled deterioration test. The tip3;1/tip3;2 double mutant was affected in seed ...

Seeds are important to agriculture and conservation of plant biodiversity. In agriculture, seed germination performance is an important determinant of crop yield, in particular under adverse climatic conditions. Deterioration in seed quality is associated with the accumulation of cellular damage to macromolecules including lipids, protein, and DNA. Mechanisms that mitigate the deleterious cellu...

Understanding the seed rain and seed loss dynamics in the natural condition has important significance for revealing the natural regeneration mechanisms. We conducted a 3-year field observation on seed rain, seed loss and natural regeneration of Castanopsis fargesii Franch., a dominant tree species in evergreen broad-leaved forests in Dujiangyan, southwestern China. The results showed that: (1)...

Homology search finds similar segments between two biological sequences, such as DNA or protein sequences. A significant fraction of the computing power in the world is devoted to finding similarities between biological sequences. The introduction of optimal spaced seeds in [Ma et al., Bioinformatics 18 (2002) 440–445] has increased both the sensitivity and the speed of homology search and it h...