Geminivirus-Mediated Delivery of Florigen Promotes Determinate Growth in Aerial Organs and Uncouples Flowering from Photoperiod in Cotton

This article discusses geminivirus-mediated delivery of florigen. Florigen acts as a general growth hormone, advancing determinate growth. The findings extend our understanding of florigen as a general growth hormone and could benefit crop management techniques

Allocation, stress tolerance and carbon transport in plants: How does phloem physiology affect plant ecology?

Despite the crucial role of carbon transport in whole plant physiology and its impact on plant-environment interactions and ecosystem function, relatively little research has tried to examine how phloem physiology impacts plant ecology. In this review, we highlight several areas of active research where inquiry into phloem physiology has increased our understanding of whole plant function and ecological processes. We consider how xylem-phloem interactions impact plant drought tolerance and reproduction, how phloem transport influences carbon allocation in trees and carbon cycling in ecosystems, and how phloem function mediates plant relations with insects, pests, microbes and symbiotes. We argue that in spite of challenges that exist in studying phloem physiology, it is critical that we consider the role of this dynamic vascular system when examining the relationship between plants and their biotic and abiotic environment

Simple and efficient method for directly electroporating Agrobacterium plasmid DNA into wheat callus cells.

All plant transformation methods (e.g., microprojectile, electroporation, polyethylene glycol etc.) reported in the literature for the delivery of naked plasmid DNA into cells and/or protoplasts have depended largely on the use of high concentration of plasmid DNA in order to obtain the maximum rate of transient and stable expression of the transgene. To meet the demand of plasmid DNA for these transformation methods, large batches of bacterial cultures must be grown. This makes these transformation methods rather tedious, time consuming and uneconomical. Here, we report a very simple and reliable procedure for the delivery of the Agrobacterium binary vector pKTWI 105 directly into the intact cells of slowly growing wheat embryogenic callus (monocot). According to this procedure, the binary vector is Table 1. 0-Glucouronidase (GUS) enzyme activity in wheat cells cv. Chines