Species of Taxus (yews) are reputed for the anticancer compound paclitaxel. Excessive harvesting triggered by commercial exploitation for the production of anticancer drugs and in some areas intense local use for timber and other purposes has cleared several of natural yew populations in the Himalayas and SW China. Awareness and concern have been raised for years at the local, national and inte...
Cycas simplicipinna (T. Smitinand) K. Hill., belonging to Cycas (Cycadaceae), is a rare and endangered species in China. All cycads have been given the ‘First Grade’ conservation status in China. GONG Xun’s Group, from Kunming Institute of Botany, has made many in-depth researches on conservation genetics of Cycas for recent years, and some significant contributions have also been made o...
Alternaria alternata (tobacco pathotype) is a necrotrophic fungus that infects mature tobacco leaves and causes the so called Brown-spot disease which results in severe losses in Nicotiana species.
Until now most studies about plant-pathogen interaction have either focused on the regulating roles of several phytohormone pathways such as JA, SA, ET which are commonly strongly activated after...
Pollinating seed-consuming mutualisms are regarded as exemplary models for studying coevolution, but they are extremely rare. In these systems, olfactory cues have been thought to play an important role in facilitating encounters between partners.
Prof. SUN Hang’s research team from Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB) have been working since 1990s to understand how alpine plant survive and r...
Genomic imprinting is an interesting epigenetic phenomena, results in parent-of-origin specific differential expression of maternally and paternally inherited alleles. In plants, the triploid endosperm is where gene imprinting occurs most often, but aside from studies on Arabidopsis, little is known about gene imprinting in dicotyledons.
Dr. LIU Aizhong’s research team from Kunming Institu...
Why does floral deception evolve? It is one of most challenging questions for evolutionary biologists. Floral deception has evolved in at least 7500 species of angiosperms, of which two thirds are orchids. Although Charles Darwin distrusted floral deception in orchids, pollination-by-deceit appears to be dominant by many lineages in Orchidaceae. Epipactis veratrifolia (Orchidaceae) is a model s...
The cap-binding proteins CBP20 and CBP80 have well-established roles in RNA metabolism and plant growth and development. Although these proteins are thought to be involved in the plant’s response to environmental stress, their functions in this process are unclear. Here, we demonstrated that Arabidopsis cbp20 and cbp80 null mutants had abnormal leaves and flowers and exhibited increased sensit...
The diversification and evolution of floral traits are driven by both biotic and abiotic agents. Among the most well-studied agents is rain, which can wash away pollen grains, reduce pollen viability and dilute nectar thus affecting the reproductive fitness directly or indirectly. Strong ultraviolet radiation (especially UV-B radiation) is also known to reduce pollen viability, and strong UV-B ...
Schisandra chinensis (Wuweizi) is a tonic in traditional Chinese herbal medicine that has been widely used for thousands of years to treat insomnia, remove fatigue, sedate and enhance mental and intellectual functions. While most researches focus on the pharmacological activity of the lignans of S. chinensis for the effects on the central nervous system (CNS), the study about the function and m...
