Week 6 Handout A03: Amanda Rajapaksa

arajapak@ucsd.edu

OH: M 3-4@CLICS /by appt.

Q: What are hormones? Name a plant process that phytohormones help control in plants.

Q: Define phototropism. What defines positive phototropism? Negative phototropism?

Q: Describe the key experiments that helped elucidate phototropism. (Hint: Darwin-1831 and Went-1926)

Q: What is occurring in the plant that results in curvature of the plant stem? How does
auxin play a role in this? Describe the transport of auxin in plants.

Q: What are the precursor molecules for auxin and cytokinin? Where are these hormones made in the plant? List
their effects on the plant growth and development. (PS4, Q1)

The auxin receptor was discovered after doing a screen for auxin-resistant mutants. Under normal conditions a wild-
type plant will exhibit primary root growth in the ____________ of auxin and inhibition of primary root growth in
the _________ of auxin. However, auxin-resitstant mutants (axr) did not express the same phenotype.

Q: Draw what the axr plants would look like under the following conditions.

The mutated genes were cloned, and it was discovered that these genes were
involved in ____________________.
Q: What are the steps in ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis?

When plants are treated with auxin, there is a rapid induction of hundreds of genes. This occurs because the auxin
response factor (ARF) binds to the ___promoter region____ of auxin-induced genes and ___activates
transcription___. Normally in the absence of auxin, ARF proteins are bound to AUX proteins. This prevents ARF
from binding to promoters. When auxin is added, AUX is ___degraded___; this frees ARF.

Q: One of the mutants discovered in the auxin was tir--. What is the role of the TIR1 protein?

Q: What is apical dominance, how can you release a plant from apical dominance, and what signal(s) mediate apical
dominance? (PS4, Q4)

Q: Define senescence. What are two examples of senescence? What is the role of
cytokinin in senescence?

Q: How were gibberellins discovered? List the effects that this hormone has on plant
growth and development.

Q: GA mutants are much shorter than normal plants. These mutants can be classed into two classes. What are these
classes, and how would you differentiate between these mutants?

Q: What would be the phenotype (properties) of a plant that lacks the ABA receptor? (PS4, Q2)
Q: Show with arrows which direction the coleoptiles will grow given the set-ups below: