Seed germination under the appropriate environmental conditions is important both for plant species survival and for successful agriculture. Seed dormancy, which controls germination time, is one of the adaptation mechanisms and domestication traits [1]. Seed dormancy is generally defined as the absence of germination of a viable seed under conditions that are favorable for germination [2]. The...

Reproductive meristems and embryos display dormancy mechanisms in specialized structures named respectively buds and seeds that arrest the growth of perennial plants until environmental conditions are optimal for survival. Dormancy shows common physiological features in buds and seeds. A genotype-specific period of chilling is usually required to release dormancy by molecular mechanisms that ar...

Dormancy is one aspect of tuber physiological age that begins with potato tuber initiation. During dormancy, biochemical and physiological processes do occur but they do not trigger immediate morphological changes, yet these processes are relevant for the number of sprouts produced after breaking of the dormancy and for the growth vigour of the seed tuber. This review article reports that dorma...

In past decades, cancer patient survival has been improved with earlier detection and advancements in therapy. However, many patients who exhibit no clinical symptoms after frontline therapy subsequently suffer, often many years later, aggressive tumor recurrence. Cancer recurrence represents a critical clinical challenge in effectively treating malignancies and for patients' quality of life. T...

Plant species with physical seed dormancy are common in mediterranean fire-prone ecosystems. Because fire breaks seed dormancy and enhances the recruitment of many species, this trait might be considered adaptive in fire-prone environments. However, to what extent the temperature thresholds that break physical seed dormancy have been shaped by fire (i.e., for post-fire recruitment) or by summer...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Lomatium dissectum (Apiaceae) is a perennial, herbaceous plant of wide distribution in Western North America. At the time of dispersal, L. dissectum seeds are dormant and have under-developed embryos. The aims of this work were to determine the requirements for dormancy break and germination, to characterize the type of seed dormancy, and to determine the effect of dehydrati...

Seed dormancy has been associated with red grain color in cereal crops for a century. The association was linked to qSD7-1/qPC7, a cluster of quantitative trait loci for seed dormancy/pericarp color in weedy red rice. This research delimited qSD7-1/qPC7 to the Os07g11020 or Rc locus encoding a basic helix-loop-helix family transcription factor by intragenic recombinants and provided unambiguous...

Obligately aerobic tubercle bacilli are capable of adapting to survive hypoxia by developing into a nonreplicating or dormant form. Dormant bacilli maintain viability for extended periods. Furthermore, they are resistant to antimycobacterials, and hence, dormancy might play a role in the persistence of tuberculosis infection despite prolonged chemotherapy. Previously, we have grown dormant Myco...

Dormancy is a form of developmental arrest and is an adaptive trait that promotes the survival of many organisms. In flowering plants, dormancy occurs in seeds and vegetative propagules (Lang 1996). Seed dormancy increases the distribution of germination over time, thus enhancing the survival of plants in an ever-changing environment. Seed dormancy is of intrinsic interest to weed scientists be...