Ebook: Endosperm: Developmental and Molecular Biology

The nutritive endosperm of angiosperms is mankind’s most important source of food, livestock feed and industrial raw material. This book is the first comprehensive overview of the developmental and molecular biology of endosperm. The text covers cereal endosperm development from fertilization to maturity, including molecular and cell biology of the syncytial phase, the cellularization process and cell fate specification of the embryo surrounding region cells, the basal transfer cells, the starchy endosperm and aleurone cells. In addition, endosperm development in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana is covered, along with recent progress in endosperm in vitro culture. Special features of endosperm, such as imprinting, polyploidy, programmed cell death and anthocyanin biosynthesis, are described in separate chapters. Finally, the genes and pathways for the main nutritional components of endosperm, storage proteins and starch are covered in detail. Each chapter is illustrated with figures and diagrams, accompanied by text intended for readers at all levels with a basic understanding of cell and molecular biology.

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The biological function of endosperm is to support the developing and germinatingembryo, and as such is believed to have played an important role forthe evolutionary success of angiosperms. The ontogeny of the endosperm remainedan enigma until the discovery of double fertilization a littlemore thana hundred years ago. Soon thereafter, plant anatomists revealed an unusual patternof development: many types of endosperm go through a syncytial phasebefore becoming cellular. The mechanism underlying the cellularization processof these so-called nuclear endosperms was discovered only recently, andmost of the molecular and developmental biological insight into endospermshas been gained only in the last two decades. To my knowledge, this book isthe first comprehensive treaty dedicated in its entirety to endosperm developmentaland molecular biology.