Seeds are central to crop production, human nutrition, and food security. A key component of
the performance of crop seeds is the complex trait of seed vigour. Crop yield and resource …

Mature seeds are an ultimate physiological status that enables plants to endure extreme
conditions such as high and low temperature, freezing and desiccation. Seed longevity, the …

Most plant seeds are dispersed in a dry, mature state. If these seeds are non-dormant and
the environmental conditions are favourable, they will pass through the complex process of …

Many molecular mechanisms that regulate dormancy have been identified individually in
controlled laboratory studies. However, little is known about how the seed employs this …

Dormancy is an adaptive trait that enables seed germination to coincide with favorable
environmental conditions. It has been clearly demonstrated that dormancy is induced by …

Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) is a key regulator of epigenetic states catalyzing
histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation (H3K27me3), a repressive chromatin mark. PRC2 …

Environmental conditions are the basis of plant reproduction and are the critical factors
controlling seed dormancy and germination. Global climate change is currently affecting …

Seeds develop differently in dicots and monocots, especially with respect to the major
storage organs. High-resolution transcriptome data have provided the first insights into the …

Lignins are phenylpropanoid polymers, derived from monolignols, commonly found in
terrestrial plant secondary cell walls. We recently reported evidence of an unanticipated …

Transcriptome analysis based on deep expressed sequence tag (EST) sequencing allows
quantitative comparisons of gene expression across multiple species. Using …