S.K. Sopory

Govindjee

G. Renger

G.S. Singhal

K.D. Irrgang

Photobiology is an important area of biological research since a very large number of living processes are either dependent on or governed by light that we receive from the Sun. Among various subjects, photosynthesis is one of the most important, and thus a popular topic in both molecular and organismic biology, and one which has made a considerable impact throughout the world since almost all life on Earth depends upon it as a source of food, fuel and oxygen. However, for growth of plants, light is equally essential, and research on photomorphogenesis has revealed exciting new developments with the application of newer molecular biological approaches. The present book brings together and integrates various aspects of photosynthesis, biology of pigments, light regulation of chloroplast development, nuclear and chloroplast gene expression, light signal transduction, other photomorphogenetic processes and some photoecological aspects under one cover. The chapters cover biochemical and molecular discussions of most of the above topics in a comprehensive manner and include a wide range of `hot topics' that are currently under investigation in the field of photobiology of cyanobacteria, algae and plants. The authors of this book are selected international authorities in their fields from USA, Europe, Australia and Asia. The book is designed primarily to be used as a text book by graduates and post-graduates. It is, however, also intended to be a resource book for new researchers in plant photobiology. Several introductory chapters are designed as suitable reading for undergraduate courses in integrative and molecular biology, biochemistry and biophysics.

Photosynthesis and Photomorphogenesis

Concepts in Photobiology

Hans J. Bohnert

Ashwani Pareek

Environmental insults such as extremes of temperature, extremes of water status as well as deteriorating soil conditions pose major threats to agriculture and food security. Employing contemporary tools and techniques from all branches of science, attempts are being made worldwide to understand how plants respond to abiotic stresses with the aim to help manipulate plant performance that will be better suited to withstand these stresses. This book on abiotic stress attempts to search for possible answers to several basic questions related to plant responses towards abiotic stresses. Presented in this book is a holistic view of the general principles of stress perception, signal transduction and regulation of gene expression. Further, chapters analyze not only model systems but extrapolate interpretations obtained from models to crops. Lastly, discusses how stress-tolerant crop or model plants have been or are being raised through plant breeding and genetic engineering approaches. Twenty three chapters, written by international authorities, integrate molecular details with overall plant structure and physiology, in a text-book style, including key references.

Physiological, Molecular and Genomic Foundation

Abiotic Stress Adaptation in Plants

S. Mohan Jain

Ricahrd Veilleux

The 18 chapters making up In Vitro Haploid Production in Higher Plants are divided into two sections. Section 1 (eight chapters) covers historical and fundamental aspects of haploidy in crop improvement. Section 2 deals with methods of haploid production, including anther culture, micropore culture, ovary culture, pollination with irradiated pollen, in vitro pollination, and special culture techniques, including polyhaploid production in the Triticeae by sexual hybridization, the influence of ethylene and gelling agents on anther culture, conditional lethal markers, and methods of chromosome doubling.

Volume 1: Fundamental Aspects and Methods

In Vitro Haploid Production in Higher Plants

Ralf Oelmüller

S.C. Maheswari

An understanding of the mechanisms by which plants perceive environmental cues, both physical and chemical, and transduce the signals that influence specific expression of genes, is an area of intensive scientific research. With the completion of the genome sequence of Arabidopsis it is understood now that a larger number of genes encode for proteins involved in signalling cascades and transcription factors. In this volume, different chapters deal with plant receptors, second messengers like calcium ions, phosphoinositides, salicylic acid and nitrous oxide, calcium binding proteins and kinases. In addition to dealing with the response of plants to light, hormones, pathogens, heat, etc. on cellular activity, work currently going on in apoptosis, cell division, and plastid gene expression is also covered in this book.

Current Advances

Signal Transduction in Plants

Ralf Oelma1/4ller

Proceedings of the first ICGEB Symposium on Plant Signal Transduction, held 4-6 October, 1999, in New Delhi, India

R.E. Veilleux

Since the beginning of agricultural production, there has been a continuous effort to grow more and better quality food to feed ever increasing popula tions. Both improved cultural practices and improved crop plants have allowed us to divert more human resources to non-agricultural activities while still increasing agricultural production. Malthusian population predictions continue to alarm agricultural researchers, especially plant breeders, to seek new technologies that will continue to allow us to produce more and better food by fewer people on less land. Both improvement of existing cultivars and development of new high-yielding cultivars are common goals for breeders of all crops. In vitro haploid production is among the new technologies that show great promise toward the goal of increasing crop yields by making similar germplasm available for many crops that was used to implement one of the greatest plant breeding success stories of this century, i. e. , the development of hybrid maize by crosses of inbred lines. One of the main applications of anther culture has been to produce diploid homozygous pure lines in a single generation, thus saving many generations of backcrossing to reach homozygosity by traditional means or in crops where self-pollination is not possible. Because doubled haploids are equivalent to inbred lines, their value has been appreciated by plant breeders for decades. The search for natural haploids and methods to induce them has been ongoing since the beginning of the 20th century.

S.K. Sopory

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