Publications by authors named "Stephen P Pearce"

The wheat GPC-B1 gene located on chromosome 6B is an early regulator of senescence and affects remobilization of protein and minerals to the grain. GPC-B1 is a NAC transcription factor and has a paralogous copy on chromosome 2B in wheat, GPC-B2. The closest rice homolog to both wheat GPC genes is Os07g37920 which is located on rice chromosome 7 and is colinear with GPC-B2.

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Background: Increasing the nutrient concentration of wheat grains is important to ameliorate nutritional deficiencies in many parts of the world. Proteins and nutrients in the wheat grain are largely derived from the remobilization of degraded leaf molecules during monocarpic senescence. The down-regulation of the NAC transcription factor Grain Protein Content (GPC) in transgenic wheat plants delays senescence (>3 weeks) and reduces the concentration of protein, Zn and Fe in the grain (>30%), linking senescence and nutrient remobilization.

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Article Synopsis
  • Long exposures to nonfreezing cold temperatures help winter wheat and barley flower faster and become more freezing-tolerant, but reproductive development reduces freezing tolerance.
  • The study used mvp mutant wheat plants to examine the role of the VRN-1 gene, finding that plants without functional VRN-1 do not flower and have better freezing tolerance compared to those that do.
  • Results suggest that VRN-1 activates a regulatory process that influences cold acclimation and that genetic variations in VRN-1 affect freezing tolerance, potentially linking it to previously identified quantitative trait loci for freezing resistance.
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Ectopic expression of a gibberellin 2-oxidase gene (PcGA2ox1) decreased the content of bioactive gibberellins (GAs) in transgenic wheat, producing a range of dwarf plants with different degrees of severity. In at least one case, a single transformation event gave rise to T(1) plants with different degrees of dwarfism, the phenotypes being stably inherited over at least four generations. The dwarf phenotype, which included dark-green leaves, increased tillering and, in severe cases, a prostrate growth habit, was replicated by the application of a GA biosynthesis inhibitor to the wild type.

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