Università Roma Tre

Learning tasks
To increase knowledge concerning fundamental processes underlying plant life as well as provide students with basic expertise in experimental plant physiology. Plant Physiology has a primary importance in many scientific areas and applicative contexts such as plant molecular biology, plant breeding, pharmacology, plant pathology, agro-industrial biotechnology.

Program of the lessons
-Growth and Development.
-Auxin: Generalities and Signal Transduction (polar transport, extension growth, phototropism, gravitropism).
-Gibberellines, Cytokinines, Ethylene, Abscissic Acid, Brassinosteroids: Generalities and Signal Transduction.
-Photomorphogenesis, Photereceptors and Responses to variations of the spectral quality of the light.
-Photoperodism.
-Control of Flowering.

Laboratory exercises:
1) Determination of water potential in glycophytes and halophytes, weight gain / loss method;
2) Photosynthesis: preparation of thylakoid vesicles and their use in the Hill reaction;
3) Surface tension and capillarity: physical mathematical derivation of the law ofJurin and realization of a variable radius capillary that highlights the characteristics of a branch of equilateral hyperbole.

PLANT PHYSIOLOGY, Lincoln Taiz and Eduardo Zeiger, editor SINAUER ASSOCIATES (Sixth EDITION; in english language)


FISIOLOGIA VEGETALE, Lincoln Taiz e Eduardo Zeiger, editore PICCIN, QUARTA EDIZIONE ITALIANA (dalla Quinta edizione in lingua Inglese)

Learning tasks
To increase knowledge concerning fundamental processes underlying plant life as well as provide students with basic expertise in experimental plant physiology. Plant Physiology has a primary importance in many scientific areas and applicative contexts such as plant molecular biology, plant breeding, pharmacology, plant pathology, agro-industrial biotechnology.

Course program
The plant cell. The cell wall: structure, biogenesis and role in cell expansion. Water and plant cells: structure and properties of water, water transport processes (diffusion, mass flow, osmosis), water potential. The osmotic behavior of plant cells. Aquaporins. The water balance of the plant and the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum: the absorption of water in the root, xylem transport (Tension-Cohesion theory), transpiration. Stomata: morphology, opening and closing mechanisms, regulation by environmental signals. The transport of solutes in solution and across a membrane barrier: the electrochemical potential and the Nernst equation. The transport of solutes across biological membranes: transport proteins, active and passive transport, membrane potential in plant cells. Photosynthesis: light reactions. General concepts, organization of the photosynthetic apparatus, antenna systems, reaction centers, excitation of photosynthetic pigments, photosynthetic electron transport chain, Z-scheme, redox potential, water photolysis, plastoquinone and cytochrome complex. Proton gradient formation and ATP synthesis in the chloroplast. Regulation of the photosynthetic process under excessive light: photoinhibition and photoprotection of PSII. Photosynthesis: carbon reactions. Calvin-Benson cycle, photorespiration, mechanisms of CO2 concentration in C4 and CAM plants, starch and sucrose biosynthesis, carbohydrate allocation and accumulation. Translocation in the phloem: pressure flow model, loading and unloading. Respiration: mitochondrial electron transport, cyanide-resistant respiration, alternative oxidase. Nutrient assimilation: nitrogen cycle, nitrate and ammonium assimilation, biological nitrogen fixation. Secondary metabolism. The functional role of alkaloids.

The professor receives every day by appointment via e-mail: alessandra.cona@uniroma3.it

Plant Physiology (in English language); Taiz and Zeiger; Sinuaver associates (fifth edition)