A severe disorganization of the lattice arrangement of tapetal rods occurs in cats nutritionally deprived of taurine. This is the first reported example of a nutritionally related degeneration of tapetal cells. The tapetal cell degeneration, along with the previously noted photoreceptor degeneration in taurine-depleted cats, suggests that taurine plays a vital role in maintaining the structural...

The functional properties of the light adaptation system in the superposition eye of the moth Agrotis segetum have been investigated by reflection spectroscopy. The spectrum of the reflected light from the tapetum of dark adapted eyes had a peak at about 580 nm corresponding to a spacing between the reflecting layers in the tapetum of 145 nm. During light adaptation of the eye the observed refl...

The Arabidopsis thaliana SOMATIC EMBRYOGENESIS RECEPTOR-LIKE KINASE (SERK) family of plasma membrane receptors consists of five closely related members. The SERK1 and SERK2 genes show a complex expression pattern throughout development. Both are expressed in anther primordia up to the second parietal division. After this point, expression ceases in the sporocytes and is continued in the tapetum...

the relative eye size, types of visual cell and mosaic, and the existence of retinal tapetum in the eyes of the spotted barb puntius binotatus were determined to gain baseline information on its visual capability. the p. binotatus acquired relatively larger eye size than the other similar sized freshwater fish species with its retina being contained both cone and rod visual cells (cone ellipsoi...

Plant metabolism is highly coordinated with development. However, an understanding of the whole picture of metabolism and its interactions with plant development is scarce. In this work, we show that the deficiency in the plastidial glycolytic glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPCp) leads to male sterility in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Pollen from homozygous gapcp double mutan...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Although abnormal hyperintensities are frequently observed at or around the optic radiation in elderly subjects, no previous reports have mentioned the clinical significance and pathologic changes of these hyperintensities. We evaluated the hyperintensity patterns of the optic radiation and its surrounding structures on T2-weighted MR images and compared these findings wi...

The 24-nucleotides (nt) phased secondary small interfering RNA (phasiRNA) is a unique class of plant small RNAs abundantly expressed in monocot anthers at early meiosis. Previously, 44 intergenic regions were identified as the loci for longer precursor RNAs of 24-nt phasiRNAs (24-PHASs) in the rice genome. However, the regulatory mechanism that determines spatiotemporal expression of these RNAs...

Studies of the anther transcriptome on non-model plants without a known genome are surprisingly scarce. RNA-Seq and digital gene expression (DGE) profiling provides a comprehensive approach to identify candidate genes contributing to developmental processes in non-model species. Here we built a transcriptome library of developing anthers of Hamelia patens and analyzed DGE profiles from each sta...