Plants! Flashcards
What are plants important for?
Food
Raw materials
Valuable chemicals
Oxygen
Bio-fuels
For many plants, we know all the genes (like Arabidopsis), this is helpful to study what?
What different proteins do
What ethical reason are plants excellent systems for experiments?
No issue of animal experimentation
What is somatic embryogenesis?
Regenerating whole plants from single cells in culture
Why is the easy ability to introduce new genes into plants useful?
For improving crops and for tools for experimentation
What are genetically modified plants called?
Transgenic plants
What do you need to introduce new genetic information into plants?
You need to employ an organism that genetically modifies plants.
What is an example of an organism that genetically modifies plants?
Agrobacterium Tumefaciens
What are “Galls”
Tumors of proliferating cells
How do you modify T-DNA to introduce a foreign gene into plants?
- Delete existing genes
- Insert new gene
- Introduce a selectable marker gene
Problem - agrobacterium does not efficiently infect several of the world’s major crop plants.
Solution?
Shooting DNA into plants using a biolistic gun!
What are the advantages of using Arabidopsis Thaliana as a plant for molecular genetic research?
Small and easy to grow
6 week generation time
Hundreds of seeds per plant
Self-fertile but can also be crossed
Easy to produce mutants
To visualise short term changes in transcription, what kind of reporter do we need?
An unstable one
What is an example of an unstable reporter?
Luciferase
