Exploration of multi-faceted model in plant biology teaching / 生物工程学报

Plant biology is a basic course for students majoring in biological science. Under the guidance of developmental biology, we have constructed a comprehensive, systematic and dynamic new curriculum system for plant biology. There are still some problems existing in the current curriculum teaching mode, e.g. the students do not listen carefully to the lecture due to single classroom teaching mode, the mismatch between theoretical and experimental courses in terms of content and timing, the incomplete understanding on plants and the difficulty of integrating learning and practicing due to insufficient field practices. In view of these problems, a series of new teaching strategies for bioscience major of Harbin Institute of Technology were proposed and implemented. The combination of lectures and high quality massive open online courses (MOOC) were used for theoretical study, to which the flipped classroom was added. In addition, the theoretical study and the experiment work were combined. Moreover, the plant cognitive practices were carried out in the campus and the botanical garden in early spring, late spring and summer, respectively. Satisfactory results were achieved after two rounds of teaching practice, which fulfilled the education requirements and laid foundations for students to continue follow-up basic and professional courses.

Application of CRISPR/Cas9 in plant biology

The CRISPR/Cas (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated proteins) system was first identified in bacteria and archaea and can degrade exogenous substrates. It was developed as a gene editing technology in 2013. Over the subsequent years, it has received extensive attention owing to its easy manipulation, high efficiency, and wide application in gene mutation and transcriptional regulation in mammals and plants. The process of CRISPR/Cas is optimized constantly and its application has also expanded dramatically. Therefore, CRISPR/Cas is considered a revolutionary technology in plant biology. Here, we introduce the mechanism of the type II CRISPR/Cas called CRISPR/Cas9, update its recent advances in various applications in plants, and discuss its future prospects to provide an argument for its use in the study of medicinal plants.

Chemical Genomics in Plant Biology.

Chemical genomics is a newly emerged and rapidly progressing field in biology, where small chemical molecules bind specifically and reversibly to protein(s) to modulate their function(s), leading to the delineation and subsequent unravelling of biological processes. This approach overcomes problems like lethality and redundancy of classical genetics. Armed with the powerful techniques of combinatorial synthesis, high-throughput screening and target discovery chemical genomics expands its scope to diverse areas in biology. The well-established genetic system of Arabidopsis model allows chemical genomics to enter into the realm of plant biology exploring signaling pathways of growth regulators, endomembrane signaling cascades, plant defense mechanisms and many more events.