Antibodies provide a suitable tool in fundamental research and their high affinity and specificity make them invaluable for diagnostic and therapeutic applications. A promising alternative to conventional antibodies are the heavy chain antibodies (VHH) of Camelidae having short length, high solubility and stability are preferred to other antibody derivatives. In this study, our goal was product...

Four full-length and one partial cDNA clones encoding four different A-type cyclins were isolated from a tobacco S-phase-specific library. The corresponding mRNAs displayed sequential appearance and disappearance during the cell cycle of highly synchronized suspension-cultured tobacco cells. Sequence analysis showed that the plant A-type cyclins can be subdivided into three distinct structural ...

The tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) agglutinin or Nictaba is a member of a novel class of plant lectins residing in the nucleus and the cytoplasm of tobacco cells. Since tobacco lectin expression is only observed after the plant has been subjected to stress situations such as jasmonate treatment or insect attack, Nictaba is believed to act as a signaling protein involved in the stress physiology of...

Cadmium (Cd) is a nonessential microelement and low concentration Cd2+ has strong toxicity to plant growth. Plant metallothioneins, a class of low molecular, cystein(Cys)-rich and heavy-metal binding proteins, play an important role in both metal chaperoning and scavenging of reactive oxygen species (ROS) with their large number of cysteine residues and therefore, protect plants from oxidative ...

The rice (Oryza sativa L.) homeobox gene OSH1 causes morphological alterations when ectopically expressed in transgenic rice, Arabidopsis thaliana, and tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) and is therefore believed to function as a morphological regulator gene. To determine the relationship between OSH1 expression and morphological alterations, we analyzed the changes in hormone levels in transgenic ...

The tobacco retrotransposon Tnt1A is one of the few active plant retrotransposon and is known to be transcriptionally activated in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum ) and in heterologous species by biotic and abiotic stress factors. It has been previously reported that Tnt1A expression is linked with the early steps of metabolic pathways leading to the activation of plant defence genes. As ozone is kn...

To date, the presequence of the mitochondrial beta-subunit of ATPase from tobacco is the only signal sequence that has been shown to target a foreign protein into plant mitochondria in vivo. Here we report that the presequence of a yeast mitochondrial protein directs bacterial beta-glucuronidase (GUS) specifically into the mitochondrial compartment of transgenic tobacco plants. Fusions between ...