The diffusion efficiency of oxygen in the atmosphere, like that of CO2, is approximately 104 times greater than that in aqueous environments. Consequently, terrestrial photosynthetic organisms need mechanisms to protect against potential oxidative damage. The liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, a basal land plant, has habitats where it is exposed to both water and the atmosphere. Furthermore, like...

Agrobacterium-mediated transformation has not been practical in pteridophytes, bryophytes and algae to date, although it is commonly used in model plants including Arabidopsis and rice. Here we present a rapid Agrobacterium-mediated transformation system for the haploid liverwort Marchantia polymorpha L. using immature thalli developed from spores. Hundreds of hygromycin-resistant plants per sp...

In land plants comparative genomics has revealed that members of basal lineages share a common set of transcription factors with the derived flowering plants, despite sharing few homologous structures. The plant hormone auxin has been implicated in many facets of development in both basal and derived lineages of land plants. We functionally characterized the auxin transcriptional response machi...

The diffusion efficiency of oxygen in the atmosphere, like that of CO2, is approximately 10 4 times greater than that in aqueous environments. Consequently, terrestrial photosynthetic organisms need mechanisms to protect against potential oxidative damage. The liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, a basal land plant, has habitats where it is exposed to both water and the atmosphere. Furthermore, lik...

In the yeast Hansenula polymorpha peroxisomes are selectively degraded upon a shift of cells from methanol to glucose-containing media. We identified the H. polymorpha TUP1 gene by functional complementation of the peroxisome degradation deficient mutant pdd2-4. Tup1 proteins function in transcriptional repression of specific sets of genes involved in various cellular processes. Our combined da...

Blue-light-induced chloroplast photorelocation movement is observed in most land plants. Chloroplasts move toward weak-light-irradiated areas to efficiently absorb light (the accumulation response) and escape from strong-light-irradiated areas to avoid photodamage (the avoidance response). The plant-specific kinase phototropin (phot) is the blue-light receptor for chloroplast movements. Althoug...

To examine the effects of depth on the performance of the freshwater dreissenid species Dreissena polymorpha and D. rostriformis bugensis, and the brackish water dreissenid, Mytilopsis leucophaeata, a controlled experiment lasting four months was conducted in a manmade freshwater lake in the Netherlands. The three species used in the experiment were collected from other water bodies in the Neth...

Ensifer medicae WSM244 is an aerobic, motile, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming rod that can exist as a soil saprophyte or as a legume microsymbiont of Medicago species. WSM244 was isolated in 1979 from a nodule recovered from the roots of the annual Medicago polymorpha L. growing in alkaline soil (pH 8.0) in Tel Afer, Iraq. WSM244 is the only acid-sensitive E. medicae strain that has been seque...

Leaf-level studies of Metrosideros polymorpha Gaud. (Myrtaceae) canopy trees at both ends of a substrate age gradient in the Hawaiian Islands pointed to differential patterns of adjustment to both nutrient limitation and removal of this limitation by long-term (8-14 years) nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and N + P fertilizations. The two study sites were located at the same elevation, had similar ...

The YNT1 gene encoding the nitrate transporter in the yeast Hansenula polymorpha is clustered with genes YNI1 and YNR1 encoding nitrite reductase and nitrate reductase, and its disruption causes inability to grow in nitrate M. Dolores PE; REZ, Celedonio GONZA; LEZ, Julio A; VILA, Ne! lida BRITO and Jose! M. SIVERIO* Departamento de Bioquı!mica y Biologı!a Molecular, Universidad de La Laguna, E-...