Keith S. Lowe

TL;DR: A transformation approach involving overexpression of the maize (Zea mays) Baby boom (Bbm) and maize Wuschel2 (Wus2) genes, which produced high transformation frequencies in numerous previously nontransformable maize inbred lines is reported.

TL;DR: In this paper, an exposed cereal meristem is subjected to biolistic bombardment in order to target non-differentiated cells for transformation, and the shoot population is screened, by means of a non-lethal enrichment assay, to identify either chimeric sectors that will contribute to germline transmission, or non-sectored, L2 periclinal chimeras that will by definition transmit to progeny.

TL;DR: When Zm-PLTPpro driving Bbm was transformed into immature maize embryos along with a Wus2 expression cassette driven by the nopaline synthase promoter (Nospro::Wus2) abundant somatic embryos rapidly formed on the scutella, and this callus-free transformation process has worked in all inbred lines tested.

TL;DR: In this article, a maize Wee1 homologue and its expression in developing endosperm was characterized using a 0.8-kb cDNA from an expressed sequence tag project, which encoded a protein of 403 aa with a calculated molecular size of 45.6 kDa.

TL;DR: The results show that control of cyclin-dependent kinase activity by Wee1 is conserved among eukaryotes, from fungi to animals and plants and imply that ZmWee1 plays a role in endoreduplication.