In general, plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi exchange photosynthetically fixed carbon for soil nutrients, but occasionally nonphotosynthetic plants obtain carbon from AM fungi. The interactions of these mycoheterotrophic plants with AM fungi are suggested to be more specialized than those of green plants, although direct comparisons are lacking. We investigated the mycorrhizal inter...

Background The development of genome editing technologies offers new prospects in improving bioenergy crops like switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). Switchgrass is an outcrossing species with an allotetraploid genome (2n = 4x = 36), a complexity which forms an impediment to generating homozygous knock-out plants. Lignin, a major component of the plant cell wall and a contributor to cellulosic feeds...

We previously devised a cucumber mosaic virus (CMV)-based vector system carrying microRNA target mimic sequences for analysis of microRNA function in Arabidopsis thaliana. We describe an improved version in which target mimic cloning is achieved by annealing two partly-overlapping complementary DNA oligonucleotides for insertion into an infectious clone of CMV RNA3 (LS strain) fused to the caul...

Members of the MADS-box transcription factor family play essential roles in almost every developmental process in plants. Many MADS-box genes have conserved functions across the flowering plants, but some have acquired novel functions in specific species during evolution. The analyses of MADS-domain protein interactions and target genes have provided new insights into their molecular functions....

Exposure to high salinity can trigger acclimation in many plants. Such an adaptative response is greatly advantageous for plants and involves extensive reprogramming at the molecular level. Acclimation allows plants to survive in environments that are prone to increasing salinity. In this study, diploid and autotetraploid Paulownia fortunei seedlings were used to detect alterations in leaf prot...

The phytohormone auxin is one of the main directors of plant growth and development. In higher plants, auxin is generated in apical plant parts and transported from cell-to-cell in a polar fashion. Auxin is present in all plant phyla, and the existence of polar auxin transport (PAT) is well established in land plants. Algae are a group of relatively simple, autotrophic, photosynthetic organisms...

abstract- a real-time, site-specific, machine-vision based, inter-row patch herbicide application system was developed and evaluated. the image resolution was 640 × 480 pixels covering a total area of 350 mm x 240 mm of a field composed of four quadrants of 350 mm x 60 mm each. the image frames were processed by labview® and matlab®. the developed algorithm, based on weed coverage ratio and seg...

The present paper deals with the field observations recorded on the traditional indigenous therapeutic applications of the plants Butea monosperma (Lam.) seeds used by the inhabitants of the Sagar district, M.P. (India). Even today a number of plants of the local flora are used for curing various ailments and diseases. The information is given in a tabular form as scientific names of plants in ...

Although integrated pest management (IPM) strategies have been developed worldwide, further improvement of IPM effectiveness is required. The use of transgenic technology to create insect-resistant plants can offer a solution to the limited availability of highly insect-resistant cultivars. Commercially available insect-resistant transgenic crops show clear benefits for agriculture and there ar...

Transgenic Brassica napus plants overexpressing AtNHX1, a vacuolar Na(+)/H(+) antiport from Arabidopsis thaliana, were able to grow, flower, and produce seeds in the presence of 200 mM sodium chloride. Although the transgenic plants grown in high salinity accumulated sodium up to 6% of their dry weight, growth of the these plants was only marginally affected by the high salt concentration. More...