Transcriptome and Gene Expression Analysis Revealed : A Potential New Marker for Somatic Embryogenesis in Common Centaury ( Rafn.).

Rafn. is a medicinal plant used as a model for studying plant developmental processes due to its developmental plasticity and ease of manipulation in vitro. Identifying the genes involved in its organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis (SE) is the first step toward unraveling the molecular mechanisms underlying its morphogenic plasticity.

The Arabinogalactan Protein Family of Rafn.

(centaury) is a medicinal plant with exceptional developmental plasticity in vitro and vigorous, often spontaneous, regeneration via shoot organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis, during which arabinogalactan proteins (AGPs) play an important role. AGPs are highly glycosylated proteins belonging to the super family of O-glycosylated plant cell surface hydroxyproline-rich glycoproteins (HRGPs). HRGPs/AGPs are intrinsically disordered and not well conserved, making their homology-based mining ineffective.

Secondary Somatic Embryogenesis in Rafn.

Somatic embryogenesis (SE) is a developmental process during which plant somatic cells, under suitable conditions, produce embryogenic cells that develop into somatic embryos (). SE is the most important method for plant propagation in vitro, having both fundamental and applicative significance. SE can be induced from different tissues and organs, but when are used as explants, the process is recognized as secondary or cyclic SE.

Somatic Embryogenesis in Rafn-Current Status and Perspectives: A Review.

(centaury) is a traditionally used medicinal plant, with a spectrum of secondary metabolites with confirmed healing properties. Centaury is an emerging model in plant developmental biology due to its vigorous regenerative potential and great developmental plasticity when cultured in vitro. Hereby, we review nearly two decades of research on somatic embryogenesis (SE) in centaury.

ragp: Pipeline for mining of plant hydroxyproline-rich glycoproteins with implementation in R.

Hydroxyproline-rich glycoproteins (HRGPs) are one of the most complex families of macromolecules found in plants, due to the diversity of glycans decorating the protein backbone, as well as the heterogeneity of the protein backbones. While this diversity is responsible for a wide array of physiological functions associated with HRGPs, it hinders attempts for homology based identification. Current approaches, based on identifying sequences with characteristic motifs and biased amino acid composition, are limited to prototypical sequences.