Crocus sativus is a triploid sterile plant characterized by its long red stigmas, which produce and store significant quantities of the apocarotenoids crocetin and crocin, formed from the oxidative cleavage of zeaxanthin. Here, we investigate the accumulation and the molecular mechanisms that regulate the synthesis of these apocarotenoids during stigma development in C. sativus. We cloned the c...

Abstract Gibberellin (GA) plays a major role in controlling Brassica rapa stalk development. As an essential negative regulator of GA signal transduction, DELLA proteins may exert significant effects on However, the regulatory mechanisms underlying this regulation remain unclear. In study, we report highly efficient and inheritable mutagenesis using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system BraPDS (phyto...

Abstract Background Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is a useful tool for functional characterizations of plant genes. However, the penetrance VIGS varies depending on genes to be silenced, and has evaluated by examining transcript levels target Results In this report, we report development novel vector that permits preliminary assessment penetrance. This new based an attenuated variant Turn...

Carotenoids protect the photosynthetic apparatus against harmful radicals arising from the presence of both light and oxygen. They also act as accessory pigments for harvesting solar energy, and are required for stable assembly of many light-harvesting complexes. In the phototrophic bacterium Rhodobacter (Rba.) sphaeroides phytoene desaturase (CrtI) catalyses three sequential desaturations of t...

Polyamines are involved in crucial plant physiological events, but their roles in fruit development remain unclear. We generated transgenic tomato plants that show a 1.5- to 2-fold increase in polyamine content by over-expressing the spermidine synthase gene, which encodes a key enzyme for polyamine biosynthesis. Pericarp-columella and placental tissue from transgenic tomato fruits were subject...

Carotenoid biosynthesis is a process vital to a11 photosynthetic organisms. Carotenoids provide photoprotection for the photosynthetic apparatus by dissipating excess energy in the form of heat (Koyama, 1991). PSY catalyzes the formation of phytoene, the first dedicated intermediate in the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway. We have previously isolated two PSY cDNAs from tomato that correspond to ...

Astaxanthin is a red-colored carotenoid, used as food and feed additive. Astaxanthin is mainly produced by chemical synthesis, however, the process is expensive and synthetic astaxanthin is not approved for human consumption. In this study, we engineered the oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica for de novo production of astaxanthin by fermentation. First, we screened 12 different Y. lipolytica ...

BACKGROUND Since the creation of "Golden Rice", biofortification of plant-derived foods is a promising strategy for the alleviation of nutritional deficiencies. Potato is the most important staple food for mankind after the cereals rice, wheat and maize, and is extremely poor in provitamin A carotenoids. METHODOLOGY We transformed potato with a mini-pathway of bacterial origin, driving the sy...

In bioassays with artificial diets, the 17-hydroxygeranyllinalool diterpenoid glycosides (HGL-DTGs) of Nicotiana attenuata function as antifeedants for the plant's adapted herbivore, tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta). To determine whether HGL-DTGs have a defensive function in planta, we suppressed HGL-DTG production by silencing the source of the geranylgeranyl diphosphates (GGPPs) required for ...