1. @Strains and life cycle

 

Mitsuyasu Hasebe

 

Physcomitrella patens (Hedw.) Bruch & Schimp. subsp. patens is widely distributed in Europe and North America, and other three subspecies have been described (Tan 1979). The three subspecies are not monophyletic and some clustered with a sister genus Physcomitrium (McDaniel et al. 2010). All strains used all over the world originated from a single spore collected by Harold Whitehouse at Gransden Wood Huntingdonshire, England in 1962 (Ashton and Cove 1977).

@@@@@@@ When the whole-genome shotgun proposal to the DOE Joint Genome Institute Community Sequencing Program was approved, a new regular strain originating from a single spore of the Gransden Wood Huntingdonshire strain cultivated at the University of Leeds was established and named "Gransden2004" at the MOSS2004 meeting (Annual international meeting on mosses, especially Physcomitrella patens) held at Freiburg, Germany. The Gransden2004 strain is available from Andy Cuming and Yasuko Kamisugi at the University of Leeds, Ralf Reski at Freiburg University, Ralph Quatrano at Washington University, and Mitsuyasu Hasebe at the National Institute for Basic Biology. We observed a lower rate and less synchronization of sporophyte production of Gransden2004 than my laboratory strain "David-NIBB" that we obtained from the University of Leeds around 1997, although we could not detect any differences in nucleotide sequences of approximately 10 nuclear-coded genes between the two strains. A part of the publicly available EST (PHYSCObase: http://moss.nibb.ac.jp) was established using "David-NIBB". The "Villersexel K3" (often called as "Villersexel") strain was collected from Villersexel, Villers la Ville, France, and was used for SSR and AFLP mapping (Kamisugi et al. 2008). Full-length cDNA clones from full-length cDNA libraries covering several developmental phases are distributed by the RIKEN BioResource Center (http://www.brc.riken.jp/lab/epd/Eng/species/moss.shtml).

 

References

 

Ashton, N.W., and Cove, D.J. (1977). The isolation and preliminary characterization of auxotrophic and analogue resistant mutants of the moss, Physcomitrella patens. Mol. Gen. Genet. 154, 87-95.

 

Kamisugi, Y., von Stackelberg, M., Lang, D., Care, M., Reski, R., Rensing, S.A., and Cuming, A.C. 2008. A sequence-anchored genetic linkage map for the moss, Physcomitrella patens. Plant J. 56: 855-866.

 

McDaniel, S.F., von Stackelberg, M., Richardt, S., Quatrano, R.S., and Reski, R., and Rensing, S.A. 2010. The speciation history of the PhyscomitriumPhyscomitrella species complex. Evolution 64: 217-231.

 

Tan, B.C. (1979) A new classification for the genus Physcomitrella B.S.G. J. Hattori Bot. Lab. 46: 327-336.

 

Selected References for the Life Cycle of Physcomitrella patens

 

(1) Spore germination, protonemata, and gametophores

Cove, D.J. (1992) Regulation of development in the moss, Physcomitrella patens. Pp. 180-193. In Development the molecular genetic approach. Russo, V.E.A., Brody, S., Cove, D., and Ottolenghi, S. (Eds.). Springer-Verlag, Berlin.

 

(2) Juvenile and adult leaves and rhizoids in gametophores

Sakakibara, K., Nishiyama, T., Sumikawa, N., Kofuji, R., Murata, T. and Hasebe, M. 2003. Involvement of auxin and a homeodomain-leucine zipper I gene in rhizoid development of the moss Physcomitrella patens. Development 130: 4835-4846.

 

(3) Archegonia, antheridia, fertilization, and sporophyte development

Kofuji, R., Yoshimura, T., Inoue, H., Sakakibara, K., Hiwatashi, Y., Kurata, T., Aoyama, T., Ueda, K., and Hasebe, M. 2009. Gametangia development in the moss Physcomitrella patens. In Cove, D., Perroud, F., and Knight, C. eds. "The moss Physcomitrella". Willey-Black Well.

 

Sakakibara, K., Nishiyama, T., Deguchi, H., and Hasebe, M. 2008. Class 1 KNOX genes are not involved in shoot development in the moss Physcomitrella patens but do function in sporophyte development. Evol. Dev. 10: 555-566.

 

Tanahashi, T., Sumikawa, N., Kato, M., and Hasebe, M. 2005. Diversification of gene function: homologs of the floral regulator FLO/LFY control the first zygotic cell division in the moss Physcomitrella patens. Development 132: 1727-1736.

 

Development of archegonia, antheridia, and sporophyte of Physcomitrium cyathicarpum, which is very similar to P. patens.

Lal, M. and Bhandari, N.N. (1968) The development of sex organs and sporophyte in Physcomitrium cyathicarpum Mitt. The Bryologist 71: 11-20.