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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Variation And Evolution Of Fruit Ripening Traits In Tomato Species, Ian M. Gillis Oct 2018

Variation And Evolution Of Fruit Ripening Traits In Tomato Species, Ian M. Gillis

Doctoral Dissertations

As angiosperm seeds mature within their ovaries, ovary tissue tends to grow and transform itself into fruit, which aids the success of the seeds. Fruits that are fleshy provide numerous ways to aid in the protection and the dispersal of seeds. First, they keep seeds hidden, encased in hard walls, surrounded by poisons and unpalatable compounds, and second, they undergo developmental changes that facilitate seeds’ release. Tomatoes, a model fleshy fruit, have all these protective traits, and over the course of ripening they become the familiar fruit that is a staple crop around the world. The wild relatives of cultivated …


Grass-Specific Mechanisms Of Iron Uptake: Investigation Of Phytosiderophore Transporters And Discovery Of Novel Iron Deficiency Loci, David Chan Rodriguez Oct 2018

Grass-Specific Mechanisms Of Iron Uptake: Investigation Of Phytosiderophore Transporters And Discovery Of Novel Iron Deficiency Loci, David Chan Rodriguez

Doctoral Dissertations

Iron-deficiency anemia is one of the most prevalent forms of malnutrition worldwide, affecting 1.62 billion people, with the population in developing countries being the most affected. Iron is equally vital in plants to perform essential functions such as photosynthesis. Crop grasses form part of everyday human nutrition, contribute fundamentally to human caloric intake, and, in some parts of the world, are the primary source of food. Grasses acquire iron from the soil by secreting chelator molecules called phytosiderophores to solubilize iron, making it available to be transported by the Yellow Stripe1 (YS1) transporter. In this dissertation, I studied aspects of …


The Interplay Between Polarity Regulators, Calcium, And The Actin Cytoskeleton During Tip Growth, Carlisle Bascom Jr Oct 2018

The Interplay Between Polarity Regulators, Calcium, And The Actin Cytoskeleton During Tip Growth, Carlisle Bascom Jr

Doctoral Dissertations

Plant cell growth is a meticulously regulated process whereby the cell wall is selectively loosened to allow for turgor-pressure driven expansion. The rate of expansion must equal delivery of new material, or the cell will lyse. In many plant cells, this process happens diffusely around the cell. However, a number of plant cells have anisotropic shapes that require exquisite spatial control of secretion. One simple example of anisotropic patterning is tip growth; highly polarized cell expansion utilized by pollen tubes, root hairs, and moss protonemata. Investigating the role various molecules have in tip growth sheds light on how plant cells …