Outline of Presentation 

1. why study plants?
     a. our responsibility 
     b. our selfish motives

2. general background on plants
     a. plant genome
            large genome
            chromosomal organization is conserved across species
     b. plant life style: sedentary, but dynamic
            high degree of plasticity
	    totipotency
     c. genome projects
            monocot: Oryza sativa (rice)
            dicot: Arabidopsis thaliana

3. Tools for determining gene function
     a. database searches 
            sequence specific such BLAST
            region specific based on synteny
     b. experimental methods via mutagenesis
            chemical mutagens such as EMS (ethyl methyl sulfonate) 
            electromagenetic radiation
            insertional mutagenesis

4. RNA-mediated defense (RMD)
     a. accidental discovery of endogenous gene silencing
     b. antisense mRNAs are involved (Waterhouse et al.)
     c. function: general defense mechanism against invasive NAs

5. transcriptional gene silencing (TGS)
     a. DNA methylation
     b. chromatin packing

6. posttranscriptional gene silencing (PTGS)
     a. degredation of mRNA leads to no expression of gene
     b. double stranded or other aberrant RNA might be involved
     c. a model of how gene silencing works

7. Hamilton and Baulcombe, 1999
     a. a candidate for antisense mRNA involved in gene silencing
     b. their data

10. Future research and practical applications
     a. good points
     b. primary research questions

:: list of references