Polyploidy is prevalent in nature. As the fate of duplicated genes becomes more complicated when the encoded proteins function as oligomers, functional investigations into duplicated oligomer-encoding genes in polyploid genomes will facilitate our understanding of how traits are expressed. In this study, we identified GmCHLI1, a gene encoding the I subunit of magnesium (Mg)-chelatase, which fun...

Bacterial wilt is a vascular wilt disease caused by Xanthomonas translucens pv. poae that infects Poa annua, a grass that is commonly found on golf course greens throughout the world. Bacterial wilt causes symptoms of etiolation, wilting, and foliar necrosis. The damage is most prevalent during the summer and the pathogen can kill turf under conditions optimal for disease development. Fifteen i...

Chloroplast development requires the coordinated expression of nuclear and chloroplastic genes. A hypothesized signal from the chloroplast couples the transcription of certain nuclear genes encoding photosynthetic proteins with chloroplast function. We have previously described an Arabidopsis thaliana mutant, gun1, which has a defect in the signal transduction pathway coupling such nuclear and ...

A pathogenic isolate of Fusarium, F. oxysporum f. sp. batatas O-17 (PF), causes wilt disease in leaf etiolation in sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) and morning glory (Ipomoea tricolor). Extracts from PF cultures were screened for phytotoxic components using a growth inhibition assay with morning glory seedlings. The extracts were fractionated using differential solvent extraction and two active c...

Light control of plant development is most dramatically illustrated by seedling development. Seedling development patterns under light (photomorphogenesis) are distinct from those in darkness (skotomorphogenesis or etiolation) with respect to gene expression, cellular and subcellular differentiation, and organ morphology. A complex network of molecular interactions couples the regulatory photor...

Strong phylogenetic signal from matK has rendered it an invaluable gene in plant systematic and evolutionary studies at various evolutionary depths. Further, matK is proposed as the only chloroplast-encoded group II intron maturase, thus implicating MATK in chloroplast posttranscriptional processing. For a protein-coding gene, matK has an unusual evolutionary mode and tempo, including relativel...

In the present study, 40 lines of peas, Pisum sativum L., from the Weibullsholm collection were examined for elongation response of the first internode to growth in soil, sand, or in darkness in air. The results obtained establish that appearance of the first (lowest) node of the epicotyl at the surface of soil was usual in only a few of the lines tested (L25, L1088, L1570). By contrast, appear...