PARTIAL TABLE OF CONTENTS, relevant to seed professionals (links are to the ISB News Report website)

PLANT RESEARCH NEWS

Maize streak virus resistant transgenic maize: a first for Africa
Dionne N Shepherd, Edward P Rybicki, & Jennifer A Thomson

There are numerous reports of genetically engineered virus resistance in crops, mostly derived from the introduction of coat protein genes for RNA viruses. Geminiviruses have DNA genomes, so coat protein resistance is less likely to be successful due to fundamental differences in the ways viruses replicate. Accordingly, we have used dominant negative mutants of the MSV replication-associated protein gene (rep) to develop resistance in maize.

Complete article:
pdf: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2007/artspdf/oct0701.pdf
web: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2007/news07.oct.htm#oct0701

How pea phospholipase C functions in salinity stress tolerance
Narendra Tuteja

Narendra Tuteja’s group at The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi, presents the first direct evidence in plant that phospholipase C (PLC) functions as an intercellular effector molecule for the alpha-subunit of pea heterotrimeric G-proteins and regulates its activities, including salinity stress tolerance.

Complete article:
pdf: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2007/artspdf/oct0702.pdf
web: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2007/news07.oct.htm#oct0702


What controls vitamin C levels in plants?
William Laing and Sean Bulley

HortResearch scientists from New Zealand have identified the last remaining unknown enzyme in the major pathway of vitamin C biosynthesis in plants and have shown that this enzyme controls the level of vitamin C in leaves. In a near-simultaneous report, scientists from UCLA, working from a different approach based on their experience in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, have also reported the discovery of this enzyme. Both approaches relied on bioinformatic analysis of the predicted protein sequence of a previously identified gene that causes low vitamin C in a mutant of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.

Complete article:
pdf: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2007/artspdf/oct0703.pdf
web: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2007/news07.oct.htm#oct0703

RISK ASSESSMENT

Crop-to-crop gene flow studies of fodder maize in the United Kingdom
P. Janaki Krishna

Various farm scale evaluations of GE corn have been conducted in the EU since 2000 in order to assess the effects of the release and management of herbicide tolerant crops on a range of weeds and invertebrates. One such study was conducted by researchers from the Central Science Laboratory, York, U.K, and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Winfrith, U.K. They studied crop-to-crop gene flow based on the farm scale study sites of fodder maize in the UK.

Complete article:
pdf: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2007/artspdf/oct0704.pdf
web: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2007/news07.oct.htm#oct0704