Plants Flashcards
(34 cards)
Q: What is Agrobacterium-mediated transformation?
A: A method of introducing foreign genes into plants using the natural DNA transfer ability of Agrobacterium tumefaciens.
Q: What is biolistics or gene gun technology?
A: A technique where DNA-coated particles are shot into plant cells to deliver foreign genes.
Q: What makes Arabidopsis thaliana a model organism?
A: Small genome, rapid lifecycle, easy to grow, genetically tractable, and well-annotated genome.
Q: What are photoreceptors in plants?
A: Proteins that detect light (e.g., phytochromes, cryptochromes) and trigger developmental responses.
Q: How does light influence plant development?
A: Light regulates germination, stem elongation, flowering, and chlorophyll production.
Q: Give one example of how environmental stimuli affect gene expression in plants.
A: Drought stress can activate genes responsible for producing protective proteins or closing stomata.
Q: What are the essential features of plant development?
A: Continuous growth, modular structure, meristem activity, and development influenced by environmental cues.
Q: What is a meristem in plants?
A: A region of undifferentiated cells that can divide and differentiate to form new tissues and organs.
Q: What two key processes control development at the cellular level in plants?
A: Cell polarity and cell division orientation.
Q: Why is cell polarity important in plant development?
A: It helps determine the direction of growth and organ formation by orienting cellular components asymmetrically.
Q: What is compartmentation in plant cells?
A: The organization of cellular components into distinct regions (e.g., vacuole, nucleus), essential for specialized functions and development
Q: Why is compartmentation important for development?
A: It allows for spatial separation of biochemical pathways and cell specialization.
Q: What are Jaffe’s Laws used for?
A: To test if a plant developmental response is due to a signal cascade rather than direct stimulation.
Q: What is a signal cascade in plants?
A: A series of molecular events, typically involving receptors, second messengers, and transcriptional changes in response to an external signal.
Q: What role does light play in plant development?
A: Light acts as an environmental signal that influences processes like seedling elongation, phototropism, and flowering.
Q: What is signal transduction in plants?
A: The process by which a plant cell converts an external signal (e.g. light) into a cellular response via receptors and signaling pathways.
Q: What are the major factors contributing to the global food security problem?
A: Population growth, climate change, limited arable land, water scarcity, and food distribution inequality.
Q: What are the world’s major crops?
A: Rice, wheat, maize, potatoes, soybeans, and cassava – major sources of calories and income globally.
Q: What environmental factors limit global crop production?
A: Drought, heat stress, salinity, flooding, and poor soil quality.
Q: Name strategies to improve crop tolerance to abiotic stress.
A: Selective breeding, transgenic crops, CRISPR gene editing, and use of stress-tolerant wild relatives.
Q: What types of pathogens infect crop plants?
: Fungi, bacteria, viruses, and nematodes.
Q: How do plants naturally defend themselves from pathogens?
A: Through physical barriers (cuticle, cell wall) and immune responses (e.g., hypersensitive response, antimicrobial compounds).
Q: How can resistance to pathogens be introduced into crops?
: Through conventional breeding, transgenic approaches, or CRISPR-Cas9 to insert resistance genes.
Q: What are common methods of plant breeding?
A: Cross-breeding, marker-assisted selection, mutation breeding, and hybrid breeding.
