Plants offer exciting opportunities to understand major biological questions, i.e. the regulation of development and morphogenesis. How are changes of the environment, developmental cues, and other signals perceived and transduced in physiological responses? What are the elements of plant signalling pathways and what is their organization? The panoply of molecular tools and techniques as well as the blossoming field of plant genetics are providing an exciting ground for major breakthroughs in unravelling the fundamental mechanisms of plant signalling. The present book establishes a state-of-the-art framework spanning the wide spectrum of perception, signal transduction events and transport processes, including cell proliferation and cell cycle regulation, embryogenesis, and flowering. Moreover, the volume emphasizes the role of the major plant signalling substances known to date (the phytohormones and more recently studied substances) and summarizes what we know on their molecular mechanisms of action. The book emphasizes how the use of molecular technology has made plant signalling processes accessible to experimental test.

An understanding of the mechanisms by which plants perceive environmental cues, both physical and chemical, and transduce the signals that influence specific expression of genes, is an area of intensive scientific research. With the completion of the genome sequence of Arabidopsis it is understood now that a larger number of genes encode for proteins involved in signalling cascades and transcription factors. In this volume, different chapters deal with plant receptors, second messengers like calcium ions, phosphoinositides, salicylic acid and nitrous oxide, calcium binding proteins and kinases. In addition to dealing with the response of plants to light, hormones, pathogens, heat, etc. on cellular activity, work currently going on in apoptosis, cell division, and plastid gene expression is also covered in this book.

This is the first comprehensive monograph on all emerging topics in plant signaling. The book addresses diverse aspects of signaling at all levels of plant organization. Emphasis is placed on the integrative aspects of signaling.

Increasing interest has been emerging in the last decade in the field of signal recognition and transduction. This is particularly true for animal systems where an impressive amount of literature is appearing and where many important pathways have been clarified at a molecular level. In the elucidation of the functions of single components of a given pathway, gene cloning has played a major role and opened the field to the genetic engineering of these complex systems. At variance with this situation, plant systems are less well elucidated, even if in recent years exciting research of developments have been initiated especially with the view toward the most promising role plants in biotechnology. Recent studies have elucidated some of the events involved in the perception of the plant hormone signals and some steps concerning its transduction. Only for three of the five hormones in plants, namely auxin, ethylene and cytokinins, have specific receptors been isolated. The use of classical molecular approaches, together with the more recently isolated mutants, have produced crucial information on receptors and shed light on possible transduction pathways. As in the case of red light, more than one pathway can be triggered by one specific signal. Many systems involved in animal signaling are now shown to be present also in plants, and in view of the fast progress in this area, it will be possible in the near future to fully describe the content of the "black boxes" in the reaction chain specifically triggered by a signal.

This fully updated volume reflects the spectacular advances in our knowledge of signal transduction pathways with a selection of ‘classic’ as well as newly developed approaches. These detailed approaches expand into the fields of molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, cell biology, genetics, and genomics. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Practical and up-to-date, Plant Signal Transduction: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition serves as an ideal guide for researchers exploring the vast array of signals produced by plants to ensure their survival.

Signal Transduction is a text reference on cellular signalling processes. Starting with the basics, it explains how cells respond to external cues (hormones, cytokines, neurotransmitters, adhesion molecules, extracellular matrix etc), and shows how these inputs are integrated and co-ordinated. The first half of the book provides the conceptual framework, explaining the formation and action of second messengers, particularly cyclic nucleotides and calcium, and the mediation of signal pathways by GTP-binding proteins. The remaining chapters deal with the formation of complex signalling cascades employed by cytokines and adhesion molecules, starting at the membrane and ending in the nucleus, there to regulate gene transcription. In this context, growth is an important potential outcome and this has relevance to the cellular transformations that underlie cancer. The book ends with a description at the molecular level of how signalling proteins interact with their environment and with each other through their structural domains. Each main topic is introduced with a historical essay, detailing the sources, key observations and experiments that set the scene for recent and current work.