Experiments with ethylene-insensitive tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) and petunia (Petunia x hybrida) plants were conducted to determine if normal or adventitious root formation is affected by ethylene insensitivity. Ethylene-insensitive Never ripe (NR) tomato plants produced more below-ground root mass but fewer above-ground adventitious roots than wild-type Pearson plants. Applied auxin (ind...

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L.) is one of the most widely grown crops in the world. This crop is easily prone to various diseases. One such disease is late blight, caused by the fungus Phytophthora infestans. The first symptoms of late blight on tomato leaves are irregularly shaped, water soaked lesions, which are typically found on the younger leaves of the plant canopy. During humid condi...

The phytohormone ethylene regulates many aspects of plant growth, development, and environmental responses. Much of the developmental regulation of ethylene responses in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) occurs at the level of hormone sensitivity. In an effort to understand the regulation of ethylene responses, we isolated and characterized tomato genes with sequence similarity to the Arabidopsi...

The extreme sensitivity of the microsporogenesis process to moderately high or low temperatures is a major hindrance for tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) sexual reproduction and hence year-round cropping. Consequently, breeding for parthenocarpy, namely, fertilization-independent fruit set, is considered a valuable goal especially for maintaining sustainable agriculture in the face of global warmi...

The fungal pathogen Alternaria alternata f. sp. lycopersici produces AAL-toxins that function as chemical determinants of the Alternar ia stem canker disease in the tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum). In resistant cultivars, the disease is controlled by the Asc locus on chromosome 3. Our aim was to characterize novel sources of resistance to the fungus and of insensit ivity to the host-selective ...

BACKGROUND Cannabis is the illicit drug most widely used by young people in high-income countries. Allergy symptoms have only occasionally been reported as one of the adverse health effects of cannabis use. OBJECTIVES To study IgE-mediated response to cannabis in drug users, atopic patients, and healthy controls. METHODS Asthmatic patients sensitised to pollen, and all patients sensitised t...

The Arabidopsis mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) kinase 2 (MKK2) was shown to mediate cold and salt stress responses through activation of the two MAP kinases MPK4 and MPK6. Transcriptome analysis of plants expressing constitutively active MKK2 (MKK2-EE plants) showed altered expression of genes induced by abiotic stresses but also a significant number of genes involved in defense respon...