CRISPR-Cas system: a powerful tool for genome engineering.

Targeted gene regulation on a genome-wide scale is a powerful strategy for interrogating, perturbing, and engineering cellular systems. Recent advances with the RNA-mediated Cas9 endonuclease derived from clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated proteins (Cas) systems have dramatically transformed our ability to specifically modify intact genomes of diverse cells and organisms. The CRISPR-Cas system has been adapted as an efficient, facile, and robust gene-targeting technology with the potential for high-throughput and multiplexed genome engineering.

Tapetum: regulation and role in sporopollenin biosynthesis in Arabidopsis.

Pollen acts as a biological protector for protecting male sperm from various harsh conditions and is covered by an outer cell wall polymer called the exine, a major constituent of which is sporopollenin. The tapetum is in direct contact with the developing gametophytes and plays an essential role in pollen wall and pollen coat formation. The precise molecular mechanisms underlying tapetal development remain highly elusive, but molecular genetic studies have identified a number of genes that control the formation, differentiation, and programmed cell death of tapetum and interactions of genes in tapetal development.

Sequence mining and transcript profiling to explore differentially expressed genes associated with lipid biosynthesis during soybean seed development.

Background: Soybean (Glycine max L.) is one of the most important oil crops in the world. It is desirable to increase oil yields from soybean, and so this has been a major goal of oilseed engineering.

Cloning of a vacuolar H(+)-pyrophosphatase gene from the halophyte Suaeda corniculata whose heterologous overexpression improves salt, saline-alkali and drought tolerance in Arabidopsis.

Salt, saline-alkali conditions, and drought are major environmental factors limiting plant growth and productivity. The vacuolar H(+)-translocating inorganic pyrophosphatase (V-H(+)-PPase) is an electrogenic proton pump that translocates protons into vacuoles in plant cells. Expression of V-H(+)-PPase increases in plants under a number of abiotic stresses, and is thought to have an important role in adaptation to abiotic stress.