First attempts to isolate plant genes were for those genes that are abun- dantly expressed in a particular plant organ at a specific stage of devel- opment. However, many important gene products are produced in a very minute quantity and in specialized cell types. Such genes can now be isolated using a variety of approaches, some of which are described in this volume. The rapid progress during the last decade in regeneration of a number of crop plants and the availability of molecular tools to introduce foreign genes in plants is allowing the engineering of specific traits of agri- cultural...

Plant growth and development is controlled by various environmental cues that are sensed by the plant via various signal transduction pathways coupled to specific response. Some of these pathways are conserved from yeast to plants being regulated by various kinases and phosphatases. In addition, plants have many unique pathways that transduce to specific signals such as light, phytohormones and oligosaccharides. This volume highlights some of the examples of the plant signal transduction machinery opening new vistas in research on plant growth and development. The new technologies including...