Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Life Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Arp2/3-Independent Wave/Scar Pathway And Class Xi Myosin Control Sperm Nuclear Migration In Flowering Plants, Mohammad F. Ali, Umma Fatema, Xiongbo Peng, Samuel W. Hacker, Daisuke Maruyama, Meng-Xiang Sun, Tomokazu Kawashima Dec 2020

Arp2/3-Independent Wave/Scar Pathway And Class Xi Myosin Control Sperm Nuclear Migration In Flowering Plants, Mohammad F. Ali, Umma Fatema, Xiongbo Peng, Samuel W. Hacker, Daisuke Maruyama, Meng-Xiang Sun, Tomokazu Kawashima

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

After eukaryotic fertilization, gamete nuclei migrate to fuse parental genomes in order to initiate development of the next generation. In most animals, microtubules control female and male pronuclear migration in the zygote. Flowering plants, on the other hand, have evolved actin filament (F-actin)-based sperm nuclear migration systems for karyogamy. Flowering plants have also evolved a unique double-fertilization process: two female gametophytic cells, the egg and central cells, are each fertilized by a sperm cell. The molecular and cellular mechanisms of how flowering plants utilize and control F-actin for double-fertilization events are largely unknown. Using confocal microscopy live-cell imaging with a …


Reference Gene Selection For Transcriptional Profiling In Cryptocercus Punctulatus, An Evolutionary Link Between Isoptera And Blattodea, Zhen Li, Xiangrui Li, Qingwen Zhang, Ling Yuan, Xuguo Zhou Dec 2020

Reference Gene Selection For Transcriptional Profiling In Cryptocercus Punctulatus, An Evolutionary Link Between Isoptera And Blattodea, Zhen Li, Xiangrui Li, Qingwen Zhang, Ling Yuan, Xuguo Zhou

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

The subsocial life style and wood-feeding capability of Cryptocercus gives us an evolutionary key to unlock some outstanding questions in biology. With the advent of the Genomics Era, there is an unprecedented opportunity to address the evolution of eusociality and the acquisition of lignocellulases at the genetic level. However, to quantify gene expression, an appropriate normalization strategy is warranted to control for the non-specific variations among samples across different experimental conditions. To search for the internal references, 10 housekeeping genes from a gut transcriptome of a wood-feeding cockroach, Cryptocercus punctulatus, were selected as the candidates for the RT-qPCR analysis. The …


Trait-Based Root Phenotyping As A Necessary Tool For Crop Selection And Improvement, Rebecca K. Mcgrail, David A. Van Sanford, David H. Mcnear Jr. Sep 2020

Trait-Based Root Phenotyping As A Necessary Tool For Crop Selection And Improvement, Rebecca K. Mcgrail, David A. Van Sanford, David H. Mcnear Jr.

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Most of the effort of crop breeding has focused on the expression of aboveground traits with the goals of increasing yield and disease resistance, decreasing height in grains, and improvement of nutritional qualities. The role of roots in supporting these goals has been largely ignored. With the increasing need to produce more food, feed, fiber, and fuel on less land and with fewer inputs, the next advance in plant breeding must include greater consideration of roots. Root traits are an untapped source of phenotypic variation that will prove essential for breeders working to increase yields and the provisioning of ecosystem …


Optical Sorter-Based Selection Effectively Identifies Soft Red Winter Wheat Breeding Lines With Fhb1 And Enhances Fhb Resistance In Lines With And Without Fhb1, W. Jesse Carmack, Anthony J. Clark, Yanhong Dong, Gina Brown-Guedira, David A. Van Sanford Aug 2020

Optical Sorter-Based Selection Effectively Identifies Soft Red Winter Wheat Breeding Lines With Fhb1 And Enhances Fhb Resistance In Lines With And Without Fhb1, W. Jesse Carmack, Anthony J. Clark, Yanhong Dong, Gina Brown-Guedira, David A. Van Sanford

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Previous results from our lab have shown that using an optical sorter to identify Fusarium head blight (FHB) resistant breeding lines was effective at reducing the toxin deoxynivalenol (DON) and FHB-associated kernel damage. In this paper we quantified the proportion of desirable genotypes at FHB resistance QTL in lines from three selection cycles of optical sorting. Breeding lines were genotyped at loci on chromosomes 3BS, 2DL, and 5A using the following DNA markers: TaHRC, CFD233, and GWM304. TaHRC is a KASP marker for Fhb1, a major FHB resistance QTL on chromosome 3BS. CFD233 is an SSR marker for Qfhs.nau-2DL …


Cellular Dynamics Of Double Fertilization And Early Embryogenesis In Flowering Plants, Ji Min Shin, Ling Yuan, Masaru Ohme-Takagi, Tomokazu Kawashima Jul 2020

Cellular Dynamics Of Double Fertilization And Early Embryogenesis In Flowering Plants, Ji Min Shin, Ling Yuan, Masaru Ohme-Takagi, Tomokazu Kawashima

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Flowering plants (angiosperms) perform a unique double fertilization in which two sperm cells fuse with two female gamete cells in the embryo sac to develop a seed. Furthermore, during land plant evolution, the mode of sexual reproduction has been modified dramatically from motile sperm in the early-diverging land plants, such as mosses and ferns as well as some gymnosperms (Ginkgo and cycads) to nonmotile sperm that are delivered to female gametes by the pollen tube in flowering plants. Recent studies have revealed the cellular dynamics and molecular mechanisms for the complex series of double fertilization processes and elucidated differences …


Plasmogamic Paternal Contributions To Early Zygotic Development In Flowering Plants, Yukinosuke Ohnishi, Tomokazu Kawashima Jun 2020

Plasmogamic Paternal Contributions To Early Zygotic Development In Flowering Plants, Yukinosuke Ohnishi, Tomokazu Kawashima

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Flowering plant zygotes possess complete developmental potency, and the mixture of male and female genetic and cytosolic materials in the zygote is a trigger to initiate embryo development. Plasmogamy, the fusion of the gamete cytoplasms, facilitates the cellular dynamics of the zygote. In the last decade, mutant analyses, live cell imaging-based observations, and direct observations of fertilized egg cells by in vitro fusion of isolated gametes have accelerated our understanding of the post-plasmogamic events in flowering plants including cell wall formation, gamete nuclear migration and fusion, and zygotic cell elongation and asymmetric division. Especially, it has become more evident that …


Recent Shrinkage And Fragmentation Of Bluegrass Landscape In Kentucky, Bo Tao, Yanjun Yang, Jia Yang, S. Ray Smith, James F. Fox, Alex C. Ruane, Jinze Liu, Wei Ren Jun 2020

Recent Shrinkage And Fragmentation Of Bluegrass Landscape In Kentucky, Bo Tao, Yanjun Yang, Jia Yang, S. Ray Smith, James F. Fox, Alex C. Ruane, Jinze Liu, Wei Ren

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

The Bluegrass Region is an area in north-central Kentucky with unique natural and cultural significance, which possesses some of the most fertile soils in the world. Over recent decades, land use and land cover changes have threatened the protection of the unique natural, scenic, and historic resources in this region. In this study, we applied a fragmentation model and a set of landscape metrics together with the satellite-derived USDA Cropland Data Layer to examine the shrinkage and fragmentation of grassland in the Bluegrass Region, Kentucky during 2008–2018. Our results showed that recent land use change across the Bluegrass Region is …


Breeding Wheat For Resilience To Increasing Nighttime Temperatures, Kathleen Russell, David A. Van Sanford Apr 2020

Breeding Wheat For Resilience To Increasing Nighttime Temperatures, Kathleen Russell, David A. Van Sanford

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Increases in global mean temperature since 1960 are largely attributed to the rise in minimum nighttime temperatures thereby decreasing diurnal temperature variation. Increased night temperatures are known to affect crop development. A multi-year study investigating the effects of increased night temperatures on soft red winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) varieties was conducted during the 2015-2016 growing seasons at the University of Kentucky Spindletop Research Farm in Lexington, KY. Thirty-six cultivars and breeding lines were chosen based on their genotypes at photoperiod and vernalization loci. This material was planted in a randomized complete block experiment with two replications and two …


Impacts Of 1.5 °C And 2 °C Global Warming On Net Primary Productivity And Carbon Balance In China’S Terrestrial Ecosystems, Li Yu, Fengxue Gu, Mei Huang, Bo Tao, Man Hao, Zhaosheng Wang Apr 2020

Impacts Of 1.5 °C And 2 °C Global Warming On Net Primary Productivity And Carbon Balance In China’S Terrestrial Ecosystems, Li Yu, Fengxue Gu, Mei Huang, Bo Tao, Man Hao, Zhaosheng Wang

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Assessing potential impacts of 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming and identifying the risks of further 0.5 °C warming are crucial for climate adaptation and disaster risk management. Four earth system models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) and a process-based ecosystem model are used in this study to assess the impacts and potential risks of the two warming targets on the carbon cycle of China’s terrestrial ecosystems. Results show that warming generally stimulates the increase of net primary productivity (NPP) and net ecosystem productivity (NEP) under both representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. …


Global Pattern And Change Of Cropland Soil Organic Carbon During 1901-2010: Roles Of Climate, Atmospheric Chemistry, Land Use And Management, Wei Ren, Kamaljit Banger, Bo Tao, Jia Yang, Yawen Huang, Hanqin Tian Mar 2020

Global Pattern And Change Of Cropland Soil Organic Carbon During 1901-2010: Roles Of Climate, Atmospheric Chemistry, Land Use And Management, Wei Ren, Kamaljit Banger, Bo Tao, Jia Yang, Yawen Huang, Hanqin Tian

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Soil organic carbon (SOC) in croplands is a key property of soil quality for ensuring food security and agricultural sustainability, and also plays a central role in the global carbon (C) budget. When managed sustainably, soils may play a critical role in mitigating climate change by sequestering C and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. However, the magnitude and spatio-temporal patterns of global cropland SOC are far from well constrained due to high land surface heterogeneity, complicated mechanisms, and multiple influencing factors. Here, we use a process-based agroecosystem model (DLEM-Ag) in combination with diverse spatially-explicit gridded environmental data to …


Inhibition Of Fusarium Oxysporum F. Sp. Nicotianae Growth By Phenylpropanoid Pathway Intermediates, Timothy E. Shull, Jasmina Kurepa, Robert D. Miller, Natalia Martinez-Ochoa, Jan A. Smalle Jan 2020

Inhibition Of Fusarium Oxysporum F. Sp. Nicotianae Growth By Phenylpropanoid Pathway Intermediates, Timothy E. Shull, Jasmina Kurepa, Robert D. Miller, Natalia Martinez-Ochoa, Jan A. Smalle

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Fusarium wilt in tobacco caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. nicotianae is a disease‑management challenge worldwide, as there are few effective and environmentally benign chemical agents for its control. This challenge results in substantial losses in both the quality and yield of tobacco products. Based on an in vitro analysis of the effects of different phenylpropanoid intermediates, we found that the early intermediates trans‑cinnamic acid and para‑coumaric acid effectively inhibit the mycelial growth of F. oxysporum f. sp. nicotianae strain FW316F, whereas the downstream intermediates quercetin and caffeic acid exhibit no fungicidal properties. Therefore, our in …