FLOWer database version 1.0 has just been launched

I am very pleased to announce that version 1.0 of the FLOWer database is finally ready and online (http://flower.web.ua.pt/). After some serious problems with the programming of the previous version of the database, we are very glad that the first release of the database is up and running. You are welcome to visit it and I encourage you to use the database as a unique resource of publications on DNA flow cytometry in plant sciences. Your opinion is very important to us, so it would be nice to receive any feedback through the shoutbox available in the home page or directly to this e-mail. The database presently harbours 826 publications, and you are welcome to provide us with any missing ones through the contribution area available in the menu bar of the home page.

This is part of the e-mail that was sent to many colleagues of the plant flow cytometry area, where this blog and the forum of plant flow cytometry were also promoted. I hope that you like all these resources that were made available to you.

Many thanks for stopping by.

The "naughty" orchid

I know that it is somehow offtopic, but I couldn't resist... A. Gaskett and co-workers have just discovered that sexually deceptive orchids from genus Cryptostylis, when mimicking female insects, frequently lead to pollinators ejaculation and waste of sperm. The consequences of such "naughty" behaviour are discussed in detail by the authors. Worth reading!

Abstract: Sexually deceptive orchids lure pollinators by mimicking female insects. Male insects fooled into gripping or copulating with orchids unwittingly transfer the pollinia. The effect of deception on pollinators has been considered negligible, but we show that pollinators may suffer considerable costs. Insects pollinating Australian tongue orchids (Cryptostylis species) frequently ejaculate and waste copious sperm. The costs of sperm wastage could select for pollinator avoidance of orchids, thereby driving and maintaining sexual deception via antagonistic coevolution or an arms race between pollinator learning and escalating orchid mimicry. However, we also show that orchid species provoking such extreme pollinator behavior have the highest pollination success. How can deception persist, given the costs to pollinators? Sexually-deceptive-orchid pollinators are almost exclusively solitary and haplodiploid species. Therefore, female insects deprived of matings by orchid deception could still produce male offspring, which may even enhance orchid pollination.

The access to the full article can be found here.

Some other ISAC posters related with plant flow cytometry

After having talked with some of the participants related with plant flow cytometry, some of them agreed in sending me a jpg version of their posters. Please click on each image for the full size of the poster. As soon as I receive more posters, I will update this post.

Contributors:
Tomas Urfus - Department of Botany, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.
Sara V. Petersson - Umea Plant Science Center, Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umea, Sweden.
Jingly Zhang - HortResearch, New Zealand.

Many thanks to all the contributors.

First review to the book Flow Cytometry with Plant Cells

The last issue of Cytometry part A (Volume 73A Issue 6) has just published the first review to the book Flow Cytometry with Plant Cells: Analysis of Genes, Chromosomes and Genomes that was launched last year (see the side bar for full details). The review was made by Dr. Sergio Ochatt from the INRA, Dijon, France and the author carefully summarized what the book has to offer.You can download it for free by clicking this link.


As an author of one chapter I am very happy to finally see a review to the book. I am positive that it will be a good promotion to the book, helping it to reach an even broader number of researchers.

Just one final remark: on the review there is an error on the link to the FLOWer database. The correct link is: http://flower.web.ua.pt/.

ISAC Congress - The plant sciences team

For prosperity the picture of the organizing team of the plant sciences sections of the ISAC Congress.

(from left to right: Jaroslav Dolezel, João Loureiro, David Galbraith, Jan Suda, Johann Greilhuber, Brian Husband and Paul Kron)

ISAC Congress - Day 5

And so the last day of the XXIV ISAC Congress came, and since the morning we could see the difference in the number of participants that were present in the Budapest Sportsarena. After 4 long days, the exhaustion was already felt, personally speaking, but there was still time for some last chatting with the commercial exhibiters and most importantly, to profit from another interesting workshop dedicated to the plant sciences. Jan Suda, Brian Husband and Paul Kron brought for the first time the world of plant evolutionary biology, biosystematics and ecology to the ISAC Congress, and I was very happy to witness that at least a dozen participants were interested. As expected, the workshop was very good with the speakers presenting several examples on the potentialities that flow cytometry has on such fields together with some "controversy" related topics on best practices.

Then was time to relax, drink some hungarian beers in a local pub and eat some typical food, before going to rest with the idea that everything was done to fulfil the objectives of the Congress. Of course, we leave the evaluation for the participants... and we hope that they have enjoyed as much as I did.

ISAC Congress - Day 4

The Day 4 of the now International Society of Advancements on Cytometry saw the comeback of the plant sciences, first by the presence of Jaroslav Dolezel in the Parallel Session of "High Throughput, High Content Analysis" with the very interesting talk on "Development of Flow-Based Strategies for Genomics of Crop Plants". There were also some interesting talks on the Advances in Flow Cytometry Instrumentation, especially those related with Acoustically Focused Sample Streams.

The day continued with the presentation of the FlowJo Software, this time dedicated to the bare basics. It seems quite a powerful tool, but still I would like to test it myself to evaluate which features may be of particular interest for plant DNA flow cytometry purposes. Again, and as with the new instruments, I will soon dedicate a post to the new software that was presented in the Congress.


In the afternoon the first Workshop dedicated to plants took place "Plant Genome Structure and Gene Expression", and to our surprise up to 25 people were present, which clearly surpassed our best expectations. The Workshop was wonderfully conducted by Jaroslav Dolezel and David Galbraith, and we had nice talks made by Jan Suda, Johann Greilhuber and by both chairmans, which covered several topics on the application of FCM in plant sciences, from sample preparation and storage, standards and standardizations, chromosome sorting for studies of genome structure and protoplasts and nuclei sorting for studies of gene expression. I had the opportunity to present some slides on the effect of cytosol on the quantitative staining of DNA, which despite being well received, w perhaps too technical for what was intended. However in each talk, some interesting questions were made and in the end we were satisfied with the overall output and reception of the workshop.

The poster session was just afterwards and again it was a nice opportunity to present the FLOWer database to many different people. The reception was good and it was a very nice idea of the congress organizers to put all the poster of similar areas close to each other.

By the end of the day, I was almost "dead" but there were still some forces for some good dinner and fruitful discussions.