Research Proposal for Daucus
The experimental treatment of Daucus carota with nitrogen and ABA to induce zygotic behavior within somatic embryos
STUDENT NAME: Kasey McCollum, Kristy Phillips, Audrey Simmons
DEPARTMENT: Biology
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 30 January 2014
TABLE OF CONTENTS
introduction
The agricultural business today remains stressed to meet high food demands. Technology and labor intensive practices are attempting to curb the problem by producing sufficient quantities of food products by efficiently modifying plants to generate identically cloned plant material in the form of artificial seeds (Bewley, 1997). To accomplish the end goal of formulating artificial seeds, the somatic embryo of the plant must behave similarly to the zygotic embryo that exists in natural seeds (Martinez, 1986). Different factors have the potential to stimulate somatic embryos into zygotic embryos (Wu, 1994). The purpose of this experiment is to test the various effects of different factors controlling redifferentiation during somatic embryogenesis. To investigate the redifferentiation during somatic embryogenesis, somatic cells of growing carrot seedlings will be induced to de-differentiate and form embryogenic cells. These embryogenic cells will then undergo induction to redifferentiation and generate somatic embryos, which will then ultimately become complete adult organisms (Bot, 2008). The aforementioned procedure will allow for the experimental analysis of various factors that impact the induction of somatic embryos into zygotic behavior. The overall goal of the experiment will be to test various factors affecting zygotic behavior and to access their ability to induce elevated levels of zygotic behavior in somatic embryos. The application of the vital nutrient nitrogen and the addition of abscisic acid (ABA) will be incubated with the somatic Daucus seeds to access their ability to influence zygotic behavior when compared against a control (Yu, 1996). ABA prevents premature
STUDENT NAME: Kasey McCollum, Kristy Phillips, Audrey Simmons
DEPARTMENT: Biology
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 30 January 2014
TABLE OF CONTENTS
introduction
The agricultural business today remains stressed to meet high food demands. Technology and labor intensive practices are attempting to curb the problem by producing sufficient quantities of food products by efficiently modifying plants to generate identically cloned plant material in the form of artificial seeds (Bewley, 1997). To accomplish the end goal of formulating artificial seeds, the somatic embryo of the plant must behave similarly to the zygotic embryo that exists in natural seeds (Martinez, 1986). Different factors have the potential to stimulate somatic embryos into zygotic embryos (Wu, 1994). The purpose of this experiment is to test the various effects of different factors controlling redifferentiation during somatic embryogenesis. To investigate the redifferentiation during somatic embryogenesis, somatic cells of growing carrot seedlings will be induced to de-differentiate and form embryogenic cells. These embryogenic cells will then undergo induction to redifferentiation and generate somatic embryos, which will then ultimately become complete adult organisms (Bot, 2008). The aforementioned procedure will allow for the experimental analysis of various factors that impact the induction of somatic embryos into zygotic behavior. The overall goal of the experiment will be to test various factors affecting zygotic behavior and to access their ability to induce elevated levels of zygotic behavior in somatic embryos. The application of the vital nutrient nitrogen and the addition of abscisic acid (ABA) will be incubated with the somatic Daucus seeds to access their ability to influence zygotic behavior when compared against a control (Yu, 1996). ABA prevents premature
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