Life Sciences Commons^™

Optimizing The Use Of A Liquid Handling Robot To Conduct A High Throughput Forward Chemical Genetics Screen Of Arabidopsis Thaliana, B. Kirtley Amos, Victoria G. Pook, Seth Debolt

Horticulture Faculty Publications

Chemical genetics is increasingly being employed to decode traits in plants that may be recalcitrant to traditional genetics due to gene redundancy or lethality. However, the probability of a synthetic small molecule being bioactive is low; therefore, thousands of molecules must be tested in order to find those of interest. Liquid handling robotics systems are designed to handle large numbers of samples, increasing the speed with which a chemical library can be screened in addition to minimizing/standardizing error. To achieve a high-throughput forward chemical genetics screen of a library of 50,000 small molecules on Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis), protocols using a …

Exogenous Glutathione Improves High Root-Zone Temperature Tolerance By Modulating Photosynthesis, Antioxidant And Osmolytes Systems In Cucumber Seedlings, Xiaotao Ding, Yuping Jiang, Lizhong He, Qiang Zhou, Jizhu Yu, Dafeng Hui, Danfeng Huang

Biology Faculty Research

To investigate the physiological responses of plants to high root-zone temperature (HT, 35 °C) stress mitigated by exogenous glutathione (GSH), cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) seedlings were exposed to HT with or without GSH treatment for 4 days and following with 4 days of recovery. Plant physiological variables, growth, and gene expression related to antioxidant enzymes and Calvin cycle were quantified. The results showed that HT significantly decreased GSH content, the ratio of reduced to oxidized glutathione (GSH/GSSG), chlorophyll content, photosynthesis and related gene expression, shoot height, stem diameter, as well as dry weight. The exogenous GSH treatment clearly lessened the …

Variation In Mechanical Strength Of Ferns In The Santa Monica And Santa Cruz Mountains, Helen I. Holmlund

Featured Research

Mentor: Stephen D. Davis

In recent years, experts in plant physiology have begun to explore the functional traits of ferns, especially in regards to their tissue-water relations. However, to our knowledge, no scientist had yet examined the relationship between fern biomechanics and physiology. We examined the mechanical properties of fern stipes (stems) and attempted to relate those properties to ecological and physiological traits. Based on our knowledge of fern anatomy, we hypothesized that stipe mechanical strength would not correlate with cavitation resistance as it does in seed-bearing plants. This assertion that mechanical strength will not relate to cavitation resistance begs …