Type I trichomes of tomato leaves (Solanum lycopersicum Mill. cv. Moneymaker), as outgrowths the plant epidermis, are suitable for monitoring infection processes powdery mildew species using a high-fidelity digital microscope (DM) without fungal staining. On trichomes, (Pseudoidium neolycopersici L. Kiss) isolate KTP-03 produced maximum four vigorously elongated hyphae per conidium, which stopp...

Background: Presently, the use of herbal medicines is expanding rapidly across the world. While considering source materials, authentication and standardization are prerequisites for herbal formulation in any system of medicine. The plant Clerodendrum wallichii Merr. (Family: Lamiaceae) has been used for various ailments in traditional systems of medicines, particularly in the treatment of diar...

Cells in the Drosophila wing are polarised to produce a single distally pointing trichome. Recent studies show that this requires the recruitment of the Dishevelled protein to the distal cell edge, and the correct levels of Rho-associated kinase activity.

It is well established that developmental programs act during embryogenesis to determine animal morphogenesis. How these developmental cues produce specific cell shape during morphogenesis, however, has remained elusive. We addressed this question by studying the morphological differentiation of the Drosophila epidermis, governed by a well-known circuit of regulators leading to a stereotyped pa...

Petal tissue comprises several different cell types, which have specialised functions in pollination in different flowering plant species. In Antirrhinum majus, the MIXTA protein directs the formation of conical epidermal cells in petals. Transgenic experiments have indicated that MIXTA activity can also initiate trichome development, dependent on the developmental timing of its expression. MIX...

Velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) seeds contain the catecholic amino acid L-DoPA (L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine), which is a neurotransmitter precursor and used for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and mental disorders. The great demand for L-DoPA is largely met by the pharmaceutical industry through extraction of the compound from wild populations of this plant; commercial exploitation of ...

In a plant cell, a subset of actin filaments function as a scaffold that positions the endomembrane system and acts as a substrate on which organelle motility occurs. Other actin filament arrays appear to be more dynamic and reorganize in response to growth signals and external cues. The distorted group of trichome morphology mutants provides powerful genetic tools to study the control of actin...

Biosynthesis of the diterpenes, alpha and beta 4,8,13-duvatriene-1,3-diol, has been observed in detached, intact glandular heads from trichomes of Nicotiana tabacum, Tobacco Introduction 1068. This result shows directly that the glandular head portion of the trichome is capable of duvatrienediol biosynthesis. In additional experiments, all of the [(14)C] duvatrienediol formed from sodium [2-(14...

As a plant shoot matures, it transitions through a series of growth phases in which successive aerial organs undergo distinct developmental changes. This process of phase change is known to be influenced by gibberellins (GAs). We report the identification of a putative transcription factor, GLABROUS INFLORESCENCE STEMS (GIS), which regulates aspects of shoot maturation in Arabidopsis thaliana. ...

Cell-fate specification is typically thought to precede and determine cell-cycle regulation during differentiation. Here we show that endoreplication, also known as endoreduplication, a specialized cell-cycle variant often associated with cell differentiation but also frequently occurring in malignant cells, plays a role in maintaining cell fate. For our study we have used Arabidopsis trichomes...