Figures
Artist's rendition of the cross-section of a seed (image composed of individual tomato seeds).
Seed size is a key adaptive trait in plant evolution. Different species produce seeds of different sizes, and these differences can vary by several orders of magnitude among species. An article by Cintia Hotta Orsi and Steven D. Tanksley investigates the cause of seed size differences between the cultivated tomato and wild, related species (see Orsi and Tanksley, doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000347). The major cause of the seed size difference can be traced to natural genetic variation in a gene encoding an ABC transporter protein.
Image Credit: Cintia Hotta Orsi (Cornell University)
Citation: (2009) PLoS Genetics Issue Image | Vol. 5(1) January 2009. PLoS Genet 5(1): ev05.i01. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pgen.v05.i01
Published: January 30, 2009
Copyright: © 2009 Cintia Hotta Orsi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Seed size is a key adaptive trait in plant evolution. Different species produce seeds of different sizes, and these differences can vary by several orders of magnitude among species. An article by Cintia Hotta Orsi and Steven D. Tanksley investigates the cause of seed size differences between the cultivated tomato and wild, related species (see Orsi and Tanksley, doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000347). The major cause of the seed size difference can be traced to natural genetic variation in a gene encoding an ABC transporter protein.
Image Credit: Cintia Hotta Orsi (Cornell University).