Publications by authors named "Mei-Chu Chung"

Lycoris species have various chromosome numbers and karyotypes, but all have a constant total number of chromosome major arms. In addition to three fundamental types, including metacentric (M-), telocentric (T-), and acrocentric (A-) chromosomes, chromosomes in various morphology and size were also observed in natural populations. Both fusion and fission translocation have been considered as main mechanisms leading to the diverse karyotypes among Lycoris species, which suggests the centromere organization playing a role in such arrangements.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Transposable elements (TEs) are fragments of DNA that can insert into new chromosomal locations. They represent a great proportion of eukaryotic genomes. The identification and characterization of TEs facilitates understanding the transpositional activity of TEs with their effects on the orchid genome structure.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

orchids have a spectacular floral morphology with a highly evolved lip that offers a landing platform for pollinators. The typical morphological orchid lip features are essential for the special pollination mechanism of flowers. Previously, we found that in the lip, a member of the AP2/EREBP protein family was highly expressed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Hybrid orchids, such as Gower Ramsey and "Honey Angel," are popular cut flowers in Japan and Taiwan. Due to pollen sterility, no new varieties have been created by conventional breeding methods. Recently, we employed RNA interference (RNAi) technology to suppress and successfully modified floret hue from yellow to white (Liu et al.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays a key role in seed dormancy and germination, with a focus on a specific enzyme, NCED, involved in ABA biosynthesis in higher plants.
  • In orchids, seed development is unique due to small embryo size and lack of endosperm, leading researchers to isolate an NCED homolog from orchid seeds to study ABA regulation.
  • The findings reveal that increases in ABA content during seed maturation corresponded with reduced germination rates, while treating seeds with NaOCl improved germination, and dehydration stress affected ABA levels in developing protocorms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Termitomyces mushrooms are mutualistically associated with fungus-growing termites, which are widely considered to cultivate a monogenotypic Termitomyces symbiont within a colony. Termitomyces cultures isolated directly from termite colonies are heterokaryotic, likely through mating between compatible homokaryons.

Results: After pairing homokaryons carrying different haplotypes at marker gene loci MIP and RCB from a Termitomyces fruiting body associated with Odontotermes formosanus, we observed nuclear fusion and division, which greatly resembled meiosis, during each hyphal cell division and conidial formation in the resulting heterokaryons.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Paphiopedilum rungsuriyanum from Northern Laos was discovered and described in 2014. It is characterized by having miniature tessellated leaves, a flower having a helmet shaped lip with a V-shaped neckline, and a semi-lunate, 3-dentate staminode with an umbo. These morphological features distinguish P.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The repeat sequences occupied more than 50 % of soybean genome. In order to understand where these repeat sequences distributed in soybean genome and its related Glycine species, we examined three new repeat sequences-soybean repeat sequence (SBRS1, SBRS2 and SBRS3), some nonspecific repeat sequences and 45S rDNA on several Glycine species, including annual and perennial accessions in this study. In the annual species, G.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aneuploidy features a numerical chromosome variant that the number of chromosomes in the nucleus of a cell is not an exact multiple of the haploid number, which may have an impact on morphology and gene expression. Here we report a tertiary trisomy uncovered by characterizing a T-DNA insertion mutant (aur2-1/+) in the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) AURORA2 locus. Whole-genome analysis with DNA tiling arrays revealed a chromosomal translocation linked to the aur2-1 allele, which collectively accounted for a tertiary trisomy 2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The anther-specific gene LLA1271 isolated from lily (Lilium longiflorum Thunb.) anthers is novel and exists in two forms. The protein encoded by LLA1271 may represent an adhesin-like protein first found in higher plants.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The Phalaenopsis orchid produces complex flowers that are commercially valuable, which has promoted the study of its flower development. E-class MADS-box genes, SEPALLATA (SEP), combined with B-, C- and D-class MADS-box genes, are involved in various aspects of plant development, such as floral meristem determination, organ identity, fruit maturation, seed formation and plant architecture. Four SEP-like genes were cloned from Phalaenopsis orchid, and the duplicated PeSEPs were grouped into PeSEP1/3 and PeSEP2/4.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Orchidaceae, one of the largest angiosperm families, has significant commercial value. Isolation of genes involved in orchid floral development and morphogenesis, scent production, and colouration will advance knowledge of orchid flower formation and facilitate breeding new varieties to increase the commercial value. With high-throughput virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS), this study identified five transcription factors involved in various aspects of flower morphogenesis in the orchid Phalaenopsis equestris.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Based mainly on morphological features and geographical distribution, Begonia×chungii (2n=22) was recently reported as a natural hybrid between B. longifolia and B. palmata in Taiwan.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Pollination is composed of cell-cell communication and complicated signaling cascades that regulate pollen tube growth and guidance toward the ovules for double fertilization, and is critical for successful sexual reproduction. Exploring expression profiles of in vivo grown pollen tubes is important. Nevertheless, it is difficult to obtain accessible pollen tubes for profiling studies in most model plants.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Wild species of rice with many valuable agronomic traits are an important genetic resource for improving cultivated rice by wide hybridization. Genome- or chromosome-specific markers are useful for monitoring genome introgression and for identifying genome components. From 47 random amplified polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs) of nine Oryza species, three bands (Ogla225, Opun225, and Opun246) were found to be genome specific with distinct sizes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Orchidaceae are an excellent model to examine perianth development because of their sophisticated floral architecture. In this study, we identified 24 APETALA3 (AP3)-like and 13 PISTILLA (PI)-like genes from 11 species of orchids and characterized them into four AP3- and two PI-duplicated homologs. The first duplication event in AP3 homologs occurring in the early evolutionary history of the Orchidaceae gave rise to AP3A and AP3B clades.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Aims: Lady's slipper orchids (Paphiopedilum) are of high value in floriculture, and interspecific hybridization has long been used for breeding improved cultivars; however, information regarding the genome affinities of species and chromosome pairing behaviour of the hybrids remains almost unknown. The present work analyses the meiotic behaviour of interspecific hybrids by genomic in situ hybridization and cytologically evaluates the genomic relationships among parental species.

Methods: Eight interspecific F(1) hybrids of Paphiopedilum species in various subgenera or sections were investigated in this study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Contrary to the chromosomal polymorphism of 45S ribosomal genes (45S rDNA) loci in other Oryza species, each of Oryza australiensis and Oryza brachyantha has only one 45S rDNA locus at the most conserved position of 45S rDNAs in Oryza. O. australiensis and O.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Two stage-specific genes have been isolated from a subtractive cDNA library constructed from developing anthers of lily (Lilium longiflorum). The proteins encoded by the two genes have a strong hydrophobic region at the N-terminus, indicating the presence of a signal peptide. The deduced LLA-67 is a new type of small cysteine-rich protein whose sequence exhibits four consecutive CX(3)CX(6-10) repeats that could form signal-receiving finger motifs, while the deduced LLA-115 protein shows significant similarities to a rice unknown protein, and putative cell wall proteins of Medicago truncatula and Arabidopsis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The genes encoding for 18S-5.8S-28S ribosomal RNA (rDNA) are both conserved and diversified. We used rDNA as probe in the fluorescent in situ hybridization (rDNA-FISH) to localized rDNAs on chromosomes of 15 accessions representing ten Oryza species.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Mago nashi (Mago) and Y14 proteins are highly conserved among eukaryotes, and not only play important roles in oogenesis, embryogenesis and germ-line determination during animal development, but also participate in mRNA localization and splicing in cell growth. We identified mago (Tcmago) and Y14 (TcY14) homologues derived from expressed sequence tags of Taiwania cryptomerioides Hayata seedlings. Tcmago and TcY14 contain coding regions encoding 149 and 216 amino acids, respectively.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We successfully identify anther-specific/predominant genes induced by gibberellin (GA) at the microspore stage of lily (Lilium longiflorum) anthers. We used a suppression-subtractive hybridization strategy to identify 22 individual cDNAs followed by a reverse RNA dot plot to determine their specificities at the microspore stage. Of the 22 genes, 12 are clearly anther-specific and three are anther-predominant.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Aims: Owing to large-scale collecting, the lady's slipper orchid, Paphiopedilum delenatii, is under threat of extinction. Asymbiotic germination provides a useful way to re-establish plants in the wild and for commercial propagation. A detailed study of embryo development would provide information on subsequent germination events and aid in the propagation of the species.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF