Project Team
Students
Sining Leng
General Biology
Penn State Harrisburg, Penn State University Park
Faculty Mentors
Sairam Rudrabhatla
Penn State Harrisburg
School of Science Engineering and Technology
Shobha Potlakayala
Penn State Harrisburg
School of Science Engineering and Technology
Dr. Wayne Curtis
Penn State University Park
Chemical Engineering
Project
Project Video
Project Abstract
Plants exhibit several sex forms during alternation of generations between sporophytic and gametophytic phases. Plant evolution and sex determination are known to be evolving parallelly since 470 million years. Sex determination in plants resulted in the formation of separate male and female gamete-producing structures. This phenomenon has intrigued scientists such as Linnaeus (1758), Charles Darwin (1877) to the present times. The most common sex chromosomes in plants are XY in males and XX in females. Another set of sex chromosome in plants are ZW in females and ZZ in males. X and Y chromosomes have different effective population size, rate of recombination, and exposure to natural selection. The mechanism of sex determination may differ between different plant species. The sex-linked regions on sex chromosomes, for example SvLG12 and SvLG9 in Silene latifolia is aiding in the study of evolution pathways by displaying the accumulation of repetitive sequences and degeneration of Y chromosome.
The current era of genomics is investigating the evolution of sex chromosomes and sex determination genes. Current understanding shows that the formation of male and female floral organogenesis is influenced by an assortment of genes through meiotic cell divisions, transcription factors, small RNAs, hormones and environmental factors. The determinants of sexual phenotype in plants include the presence of sex chromosome (Marchantia polymorpha), hormonal regulation (corn) or pheromonal crosstalk between individual plants. The flowering plants, angiosperms include plants that produce flowers with specialized organs producing microspores or megaspores from which male and female gametophytes develop. Sex determination in these plants is known to be influenced by several external factors such as plant hormones and environments factors.
Understanding the sex determination in plants will help us control the gender of economically important plants. For example, the female flowers of industrial hemp are favored for their medicinal value, and male plants of bayberry are preferred in urban parks for landscaping. Understanding the sexual phenotypes in commercially important plants can be helpful for breeding and cultivating new crop species for future generations.
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