Jennifer Sloan

The University of Sheffield | Sheffield · Department of Animal and Plant Sciences

Expansins are cell wall proteins associated with the process of plant growth. However, investigations in which expansin gene expression has been manipulated throughout the plant have often led to inconclusive results. In this article, we report on a series of experiments in which overexpression of expansin was targeted to specific phases of leaf gr...

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an important food crop relied upon by billions of people worldwide. However, with increasing pressure from climate change and rapid population growth, cultivation is very water-intensive. Therefore, it is critical to produce rice that is high-yielding and genetically more water-use efficient. Here, using the stabilized fas...

Fig. S1 Peptide sequence alignment and functional studies of the rice OsEPF1 (OSIR64_00232g011350) gene. Fig. S2 Confocal microscopy imaging of stomata and underlying sub‐stomatal cavity formation and vein development in leaf 5 of 21‐d‐old rice plants. Fig. S3 Total guard cell area of IR64 control and OsEPF1oe plants grown at 30 and 40°C. Fig. S...

Much of humanity relies on rice (Oryza sativa) as a food source, but cultivation is water intensive and the crop is vulnerable to drought and high temperatures. Under climate change, periods of reduced water availability and high temperature are expected to become more frequent, leading to detrimental effects on rice yields. We engineered the high‐...

Figure S1. Epidermal cell size, stomatal density and stomatal conductance.

Table S1. Physiology and imaging data.

Figure S3. Analysis of chloroplast and cell structure.

Figure S4. Analysis of stomatal and non‐stomatal limitation.

Figure S2. Analysis of light absorption and photosystem efficiency.

Figure S5. Generation and characterization of transgenic Arabidopsis.

The pattern of cell division, growth and separation during leaf development determines the pattern and amount of airspace in a leaf. The resulting balance of cellular material and airspace is expected to significantly influence the primary function of the leaf, photosynthesis, yet the manner and degree to which cell division patterns impact airspac...

The development and patterning of stomata in the plant epidermis has emerged as an ideal system for studying fundamental plant developmental processes. Over the past twenty years most studies of stomata have used the model dicotyledonous plant Arabidopsis thaliana. However, cultivated monocotyledonous grass (or Gramineae) varieties provide the majo...

Guard cells allow land plants to survive under restricted or fluctuating water availability. They control the exchange of gases between the external environment and the interior of the plant by regulating the aperture of stomatal pores in response to environmental stimuli such as light intensity, and are important regulators of plant productivity....

The causal relationship between cell division and growth in plants is complex. Although altered expression of cell-cycle genes frequently leads to altered organ growth, there are many examples where manipulation of the division machinery leads to a limited outcome at the level of organ form, despite changes in constituent cell size. One possibility...

Growth curves of Arabidopsis leaves.

Development of leaf porosity over time.

Total chlorophyll and anthocyanin content in induced WT and induced RBRRNAi leaves.

MicroCT imaging of a wild-type Arabidopsis leaf.

Transient GUS reporter gene expression following DEX induction of RBRRNAi seedlings.

List of quantitative RT–PCR primers.

Expansins are cell wall proteins implicated in the control of plant growth via loosening of the extracellular matrix. They are encoded by a large gene family, and data linked to loss of single gene function to support a role of expansins in leaf growth remain limited. Here, we provide a quantitative growth analysis of transgenics containing an indu...