All Articles Tagged As: plants

Review article provides tools for the Rosaceae genomics community (7/13/2008)

Comprehensive overview of the genomics tools and resources available for the rapidly growing Rosaceae scientific community ...> Full Article

Duckweed genome sequencing has global implications (7/9/2008)

Pond scum can undo pollution, fight global warming and alleviate world hunger ...> Full Article

Genomics Research Focuses on Rice Variety Improvement (7/7/2008)

Crop varieties can be improved through the study of genomics without creating genetically transformed varieties. ...> Full Article

Mate choice in plants (7/6/2008)

A newly-identified self-incompatibility factor in tobacco helps maintain genetic diversity ...> Full Article

Plants in the fourth dimension (7/5/2008)

The molecular basis and regulation of circadian rhythms in plants ...> Full Article

To branch or not to branch (7/2/2008)

RAMOSA gene network influences grain architecture and yield in maize ...> Full Article

The 21st century tomato (7/2/2008)

Using systems biology to model the metabolic networks in tomato fruit development ...> Full Article

How to build a plant (6/30/2008)

Plant architecture from the genomics toolbox ...> Full Article

Apple of her eyes (6/12/2008)

Apples being modified for many different uses ...> Full Article

First Draft of Oil Palm Genome Completed (5/22/2008)

Knowledge of the plant and environment genomes will foster the development of improved plant feedstocks, biofertilizers, plant disease diagnostic and control solutions and renewable fuels ...> Full Article

Scientists decipher fruit tree genome for the first time (5/16/2008)

Researchers from several universities of the USA and China have sequenced for the first time papaya genome; they have also identified the DNA of a transgenic organism for the first time. ...> Full Article

First draft of transgenic papaya genome yields many fruits (4/24/2008)

A broad collaboration of research institutions in the U.S. and China has produced a first draft of the papaya genome. This draft, which spells out more than 90 percent of the plant's gene coding sequence, sheds new light on the evolution of flowering plants. ...> Full Article

Analysis Of RNA Role In Spreading Disease Advances Study Of Damaging Plant Infections (4/24/2008)

Recent research that links specific pieces of RNA to an infectious organism's duplication and spread could lead the way to the prevention of viroids, pathogens that can kill or damage food crops and other plants. ...> Full Article

Zinc link made in barley breeding (4/23/2008)

Chromosomal regions conferring zinc efficiency in barley ...> Full Article

Key Grape Genes Sought From US Grape Germplasm Collection (4/22/2008)

Scientists are embarking on a study to index the useful genetic variation of more than 2,000 accessions in the ARS grape germplasm collection ...> Full Article

The Tree of Flowering Plants (4/20/2008)

Biologists attempting to find when plants families split ...> Full Article

Plant researchers publish finding on enzyme, drought connection (4/20/2008)

A better understanding of how plants tolerate drought could result ...> Full Article

A place in the sun (4/5/2008)

Scientists learn how plants compete for sunlight. ...> Full Article

Defining gene's role may lead to prevention of dangerous corn toxin (3/31/2008)

Discovery that a specific gene is integral to both fungal invasion of corn and development of a potentially deadly toxin in the kernels may lead to ways to control the pathogen and the poison. ...> Full Article

Less can be more, for plant breeders too (3/25/2008)

Imagine you are a rice breeder and one day within a large field you discover a plant that has just the characteristics you have been looking for. You happily take your special plant to the laboratory where you find out that the spontaneous, beneficial event was due to inactivation of a single gene. This is a great observation; however, there are many different strains grown in different parts of the world, well adapted to the particular region they grow in. How can you now transfer the inactivated gene to other strains of rice? Conventionally, you would have to go through years and years of breeding, until you have successfully transferred that single gene, without affecting all the other genes that are responsible for the target strains being so well adapted to their local environment. Would it not be great, if one could do this faster? ...> Full Article

Plant gene clusters for natural products (3/24/2008)

scientists have found that plants may cluster the genes needed to make defence chemicals. Their findings may provide a way to discover new natural plant products of use as drugs, herbicides or crop protectants. Using a gene cluster that makes an antifungal compound in oats as a template, they uncovered a previously unknown gene cluster making a related compound in a very different species, and now want to extend the search to other plants. ...> Full Article

Gene 'Knockout' Floors Tobacco Carcinogen (3/20/2008)

Scientists have shown that silencing a specific gene in burley tobacco plants significantly reduces harmful carcinogens in cured tobacco leaves. ...> Full Article

Controlling a sea of information (3/19/2008)

New system will unclog the information highway and significantly increase the data contained in TAIR ...> Full Article

Systems biology approach identifies nutrient regulation of biological clock in plants (3/16/2008)

Using a systems biological analysis of genome-scale data from the model plant Arabidopsis, an international team of researchers identified that the master gene controlling the biological clock is sensitive to nutrient status. The study will appear in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This hypothesis derived from multi-network analysis of Arabidopsis genomic data, and validated experimentally, has shed light on how nutrients affect the molecular networks controlling plant growth and development in response to nutrient sensing. ...> Full Article

Crop scientists discover gene that controls fruit shape (3/14/2008)

Crop scientists have cloned a gene that controls the shape of tomatoes, a discovery that could help unravel the mystery behind the huge morphological differences among edible fruits and vegetables, as well as provide new insight into mechanisms of plant development. ...> Full Article

All Eyes and Ears on the Corn Genome (3/3/2008)

Researchers complete draft sequence in less than three years ...> Full Article

Genetic Coding Of The Pea Unraveled (3/2/2008)

The pea is one of many important crop species that is unsuited to the Agrobacterium-based genetic modification techniques that are commonly used to work with crops. Researchers have now discovered the first high-throughput forward and reverse genetics tool for the pea (Pisum sativum), could have major benefits for crop breeders around the world. ...> Full Article

Gene That Controls Ozone Resistance of Plants Could Lead to Drought-Resistant Crops (2/29/2008)

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego, working with collaborators at the University of Helsinki in Finland and two other European institutions, have elucidated the mechanism of a plant gene that controls the amount of atmospheric ozone entering a plant's leaves. ...> Full Article

Researchers help piece together the corn genome's first draft (2/28/2008)

Researchers helped write the first draft of the corn genome sequence that will be announced Thursday, Feb. 28, at the 50th Annual Maize Genetics Conference in Washington, D.C. ...> Full Article

Researchers discover protein sequence that governs whether a plant grows a root or shoot (2/9/2008)

Controlled by a tightly regulated choreography that determines what should go up and what should go down, plants develop along a polar axis with a root on one end and a shoot on the other. ...> Full Article

DNA 'barcode' identified for plants (2/6/2008)

A 'barcode' gene that can be used to distinguish between the majority of plant species on Earth has been identified by scientists who publish their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal today (4 February 2008). ...> Full Article

Gene guards grain-producing grasses so people and animals can eat (2/4/2008)

Purdue University and USDA-Agricultural Research Service scientists have discovered that a type of gene in grain-producing plants halts infection by a disease-causing fungus that can destroy crops vital for human food supplies. ...> Full Article

Scientists explore factors contributing to DNA mutations (1/31/2008)

A team of Penn State researchers is the first to conduct a genome-wide study to compare the relative importance of factors that contribute to DNA mutations, which are implicated in cancer and more than 40 neurological disorders. Led by assistant professor of biology Kateryna Makova, the group investigated the simultaneous effects of numerous factors that are thought to increase the susceptibility to mutations of microsatellites -- variable-length sequences of recurring DNA subunits. Microsatellites are common throughout the genomes of plants and animals. The work is described in the January issue of the journal Genome Research. ...> Full Article

Benefits outweigh risks from genetically modified plants (1/24/2008)

New study urges public not to ban commercial production of genetically modified plants and animal as the risks are alarmist and exaggerated ...> Full Article

Team finds an economical way to boost the vitamin A content of maize (1/21/2008)

A team of plant geneticists and crop scientists has pioneered an economical approach to the selective breeding of maize that can boost levels of provitamin A, the precursors that are converted to vitamin A upon consumption. This innovation could help to enhance the nutritional status of millions of people in the developing world. ...> Full Article

Soybean Genome Assembly Available To Scientists (1/19/2008)

A preliminary assembly and annotation of the soybean genome, Glycine max, has been made available by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), to the greater scientific community to enable bioenergy research. ...> Full Article

Genetically modified carrots provide more calcium (1/17/2008)

Genetically modifying carrots to express increased levels of a gene that enables the transport of calcium across membranes of plant cells can make the vegetables a better source of calcium, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center at Texas A&M University. Their report appears today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ...> Full Article

Genetically Engineered Corn May Harm Stream Ecosystems (10/9/2007)

A new study indicates that a popular type of genetically engineered corn--called Bt corn--may damage the ecology of streams draining Bt corn fields in ways that have not been previously considered by regulators. The study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, appears in the Oct. 8 edition of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ...> Full Article