BABY BOOM1 is a rice transcription factor that can initiate embryonic development. Its early expression in the zygote normally involves the paternal allele, connecting a contribution from the male gamete to the start of a new developmental programme.
Imtiyaz Khanday and colleagues redirected BABY BOOM1 expression into the unfertilized ovum. This was sufficient to initiate an embryo without fertilization. Combining that trigger with altered meiosis enabled clonal seed production in an engineered system.[ref]
The components solve different problems: initiating an embryo does not by itself prevent the genetic reshuffling and chromosome-number reduction of ordinary meiosis. This separation explains why a single developmental trigger and a complete clonal propagation system are different experimental achievements.

Ancestors (6)

  1. Transcription factor
  2. Gene expression
  3. Molecular genetics
  4. Genetics
  5. Biology
  6. Home

Incoming links (2)

View article source

Discussion (0) New discussion

There are no discussions about this article yet.

Articles by others on the same topic (0)

There are currently no matching articles.
See all articles in the same topic Create my own version