Viroids are small, circular, single-stranded RNA molecules that, while not coding for any protein, cause several plant diseases. Viroids rely for their infectious cycle on host proteins, most of which are likely to be involved in endogenous RNA-mediated phenomena. Therefore, characterization of host factors interacting with the viroid may contribute to the elucidation of RNA-related pathways of...

Several cDNA clones encoding 4-coumarate:coenzyme A ligase (4CL) were isolated from a tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) cDNA library and grouped into two classes. Sequencing of one cDNA from each class showed that the clones were similar to other 4CL genes and about 80% identical with each other. Genomic Southern blots using DNA from Nicotiana sylvestris, Nicotiana tomentosiformis, and N. tabacum dem...

In Solanaceae, the S-specific interaction between the pistil S-RNase and the pollen S-Locus F-box protein controls self-incompatibility (SI). Although this interaction defines the specificity of the pollen rejection response, the identification of three pistil essential modifier genes unlinked to the S-locus (HT-B, 120K, and NaStEP) unveils a higher degree of complexity in the pollen rejection ...

Bacterial phytopathogen type III secreted (T3S) effectors have been strongly implicated in altering the interaction of pathogens with host plants. Therefore, it is useful to characterize the whole effector repertoire of a pathogen to understand the interplay of effectors in plants. Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae is a causal agent of kiwifruit canker disease. In this study, we generated an ...

plants are cloaked in hundreds of tiny projections, known as trichomes. These structures vary in function, shape, size and spacing from species to species, and it’s not known whether similar cellular differentiation programs are responsible for making trichomes in different plants. Trichomes are clearly visible in the scanning electron micrograph of a wild-type Nicotiana tabacum seedling above ...

We studied the evolution of the tobacco Tnt1 retrotransposon by analyzing Tnt1 partial sequences containing both coding domains and U3 regulatory sequences obtained from a number of Nicotiana species. We detected three different subfamilies of Tnt1 elements, Tnt1A, Tnt1B, and Tnt1C, that differ completely in their U3 regions but share conserved flanking coding and LTR regions. U3 divergence bet...