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The teaching is organized as follows:

Learning outcomes

The course examines the principal physiological and molecular aspects of plant growth and development. The program includes water balance, xylematic and floematic transport,photosynthesis, biosynthesis and action of phytohormones, photomorphogenesis, abiotic stress, secondary metabolism. The objective of the course is the acquisition of the theoretical fundamentals of plant physiology relevant for viticulture.

Program

Water transport in plants: chemical properties of water, water and solute transport processes.
Water balance of plants: movement of water in the soil, water absorption by roots, water transport through the xylem, transpiration and stomatal movements, control of stomatal opening. Water stress: physiological responses to drought.
Photosynthesis: general concepts of light reactions and carbon reactions. Starch and sucrose synthesis. Translocation in the phloem: phloem loading and unloading, the sink-source concept, allocation and partitioning of phosynthates.
General concepts of genetic information, gene expression and signal transduction pathways in eukaryotes.
Photomorphogenesis: phytochrome, phytochrome responses, cellular and molecular mechanisms. Blu-light responses.
Phytohormones: biosynthesis, physiological effects and molecular modes of action of auxin, cytokinins, gibberellins, ethylene, abscisic acid , brassinosteroids, polyamines, jasmonic acid.
Molecular methods used in experimental plant physiology: isolation and purification of nucleic acids and proteins from plant cells and tissues; methods for gene expression analysis;genetic transformation of plants.
Laboratory
Use of reporter genes for gene expression analysis with particular attention to the study of regulatory regions and to the hormones distribution in response to different stimuli; Agrobacterium tumefaciens as natural genetic engineer: T-DNA transfer mechanism to plant cell; transgenic plants generation by Agrobacterium and biolistic methods. Genetic transformation of the model species Arabidopsis thaliana by floral dip.
Practical work
Histochemical assay of beta-glucoronidase activity on plants expressing reporter constructs for gene expression and hormones sensitivity analyses.

Examination Methods

oral