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Embryo containing the information of the whole organism
7/24/2008
The Outline of the ECIWO Theory
Yingqing Zhang, Professor
(ECIWO Biology Institute, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250100, P. R. China)
Do various organs or various relatively independent parts of the plant have the same essence? It also can say, are branches, leaves, leaflets, leaf lobes, veins, leaf bunches, flowers, calyxes, petals, carpels, stamens, pollens, roots, cells etc. all the same in essence? This is an important problem of universal significance in botany.
Previous studies have not solved the problem. For example, Goethe believed various organs of the plant are all the metamorphosis of the leaf. But Bower thought that leaves are secondary and it is branches that are the basic units of the plant. Though these results are very useful to explain the evolution among some organs, the same essence of all organs of the plant has not been found. However, I find that each of various organs or various relatively independent parts of the plant is a specialized new individual being both at a certain stage of its own ontogenesis and a component of the plant, and discover the essential unity of various organs of the plant. It provides a completely new view of the plant for understanding anew multitudinous problems in botany, and opens a way for directionally changing the characters of the plant according to human needs.
In the past, the term Embryo meant a new individual at the early stage of ontogenesis, namely, the young. However, I use the term Embryo in wide sense and it means generally a new individual that may be at every stage of ontogenesis, no matter whether it is at early, middle or late stage. For example, the zygote can be regarded as a embryo at the earliest stage of ontogenesis, and adult can be regarded as a embryo at the very late stage of ontogenesis. I have put forward the view that an organism not only develops from an embryo but also is composed of multitudinous embryos at various levels below the whole organism. An embryo composing the organism has three characteristics: 1, it lives in the parent body and is a component of the parent body; 2, it is specialized and performs a certain function in the organism to serve the whole; 3, it is at a certain stage of its own ontogenesis, and in many cases, it cannot continue to develop into an independent adult because the embryo is specialized and the whole organism inhibits its development. I have named such an embryo an ECIWO(an acronym for Embryo Containing the Information of the Whole Organism). The definition of the ECIWO is a specialized embryo being both at a certain stage of its own ontogenesis and a component of the whole organism.
This paper will prove that various organs or various relatively independent parts of a plant, such as branches, leaves, leaflets, leaf lobes, veins, leaf bunches, flowers, calyxes, petals, carpels, stamens, pollens, roots, metamorphosis branches and leaves, cells, etc. are all ECIWOs. This paper will found the plant ECIWO theory and also explain anew the nature of the development and the reason for producing stipuls, prophylls of a branch and compound, lobose, or opposite leaves.
To sum up, the plant ECIWO theory has the following key points.
① An ECIWO is a specialized embryo being both at a certain stage of development and a component of the whole plant. An ECIWO is a relatively independent new individual first, and then it may be the component of the plant. The condition that a part of a plant may bean ECIWO is that the part has relatively clear boundaries to its surrounding parts in structure and function, so it can relatively be isolated from other parts. In a plant, any relatively independent part with relatively clear boundaries to its surrounding parts in structure and function is an ECIWO.
② The autonomous development of an ECIWO is the ontogenesis of the ECIWO as a relatively independent new individual. In a plant, each stage of the autonomous development of an ECIWO has its corresponding stage in the ontogenesis of the plant. An ECIWO at a certain stage of the autonomous development rough recapitulates the course from the early stage to the corresponding stage of the ontogenesis of the plant, and the ECIWO is similar in general character marks to the plant at the corresponding stage of the ontogenesis. ECIWOs may have different degrees of autonomous development and may also have different directions and different degrees of specialization, so they may have the ability of boundless metamorphoses and can become different organs and parts of the plant.
③ A plant is composed of multiplicate ECIWOs at different stages of development and with different specialization. A certain ECIWO can be divided into many ECIWOs of lower levels, and many ECIWOs can compose an ECIWO of a higher level. In a multi cellular plant, there exist multiple ECIWOs contained grade by grade between the level of the whole plant and the cell level, and the whole plant is the ECIWO whose developmental degree is the highest, and a single somatic cell is an ECIWO whose developmental degree is the lowest. They are both the special cases of the ECIWO. In a plant, there exist substance changes among different ECIWOs, and ECIWOs can coordinate each other and serve the whole plant.
④ The nature of the development of the plant is the ECIWO multiplication, the respective development of ECIWOs and the respective specialization of ECIWOs. In the past, the cell theory has discovered the unity among different cells, but it can not solve the problem of the unity of different organs above the cell level. However, the plant ECIWO theory has discovered that the various organs or the various relatively independent parts of each level from the cell to the whole plant are all ECIWOs and all have essential unity. The cell is only one kind of ECIWOs, so the cell theory of the plant has been contained by the plant ECIWO theory. The totipotency of the somatic cell is the basis of the existence of the ECIWO. Owing to the semiconservative replication of DNA and the mitosis of cells, in general, a somatic cell has the same whole set of genes as the zygote. In artificial medium, the somatic cell separated from the plant may develop into a new individual; but in thebody of the parent itself, namely the natural medium, the somatic cell that is not separated from the plant may also develop to a new individual and may specialize in the development course, so that any relatively independent part can become a specialized embryo at a certain stage of development, namely, an ECIWO. In addition, there is a clear and major difference between the plant ECIWO theory and the totipotency theory of the somatic cell. The latter points out that the somatic cell has the latent ability to develop to a new individual, while the former points out that it is a fact that the somatic cell develops to anew individual in the natural plant itself. The totipotency theory of the somatic cell alone can not explain the nature of various organs or relatively independent parts of the plant, and can not explain the unity and the variety of various organs or various relatively independent parts of the plant either.
The plant ECIWO theory discovers that a plant consists of symbiotic and multiple ECIWOs. And different parts of a plant are the same in essence, namely, they are all ECIWOs. So, the theory has provided a completely new view of the plant. This may be a fundamental and conceptual change for botany, so it will exert important influence on various theoretical and applied fields related to plants. For an example, an ECIWO is a new individual in essence, so it can have both heredity and variability, and the variability is determined to a great extent by the certain character of the position where the ECIWO lives in the parent, and the variability in the progeny is towards increasing the certain character of the position of the parent. So, that the ECIWO at the certain position is used as the reproduce material may set off the directive variation. About this problem, I have advanced the theory of the dynamic equilibrium between cDNA retrojoining and loss in the genome, the theory of ECIWO localized seed selection being effective, the method of the ECIWO localized seed selection and the theory of the trans-geno combination for the strength of the expected character based on the ECIWO theory. The method of the ECIWO localized seed selection has been used successfully in the fields of agriculture, horticulture, plant tissue culture etc.16 The plant ECIWO theory also has a general biological significance. It will greatly help people to understand and accept the general ECIWO theory that the general organism including the human body and other animals is composed of ECIWOs.
Larger seeds tend to produce larger plants because they get going quicker after planting, and more leaf area at an earlier stage allows more sunlight to be captured.
Many seed companies inherently know this and have implemented the practice of discarding the smaller seeds before selling them. With current seed sorting equipment the process is done automatically without the need of selecting individual seeds. One enterprising seed company I saw even went so far as to only offer for sale the largest 10% of their seed crop. It's harder to do this however with the hand collection systems used by small scale growers, so knowing which parts of the plant produce larger seeds can be helpful.
I agree that the practice of planting only the largest seeds on a plant may improve cultural aspects of the crop: The phenotype. But I can't see how it would do anything to improve the genotype.
There is definitely a cultural disconnect going on. (The article was apparently written by Stephen M. Coleman of California, who seems to have a limited understanding of genetics.) The first time I read it I was going to write a scathing rebuke... However, on a second reading the article contains much valuable information if I can overlook the obvious glaring flaws...
The basic premise of the the work of professor Zhang in China is that some parts of the plant produce larger seeds that grow more vigorously than other parts of the plant, due to either more stored energy or less virus load. And that if we plant the better seeds that we will get larger harvests. It's a subtle effect (around 5% to 20%) that might not be noticed unless one was doing careful measurements.... Who would notice if their pole bean crop produced 86,000 beans instead of 80,000? That difference is smaller than the year to year variation due to weather, and it's smaller than the plant to plant differences in the same year due to variability in the soil.
So when it speaks of "variety improvement" or "genetic potential", I interpret that, from my western perspective, as synonyms for Mendelian genetics.... But the article is really talking about what I would call the phenotype: The measurable characteristics of the plant after it has interacted with it's environment, and not about the actual genes of the plant... After all, the method is called something like "every part of the plant is genetically the same as every other part".
I'm speculating that we could get similar improvement in yield by planting the seed producing plants at wider spacings in richer soils with a more favorable water/sunlight regimen: The idea being that larger less virus loaded propagules produce better plants and thus higher yields.
It's easy to say that the position of a corn kernel on the cob affects it's phenotype and the phenotype of the plant it produces the next year... We have a long tradition in the usa of selecting corn seeds for planting from the middle third of the cob because the tip kernels tend to be small and to produce less vigorous plants, (who knows why the bottom 1/3 isn't favored....)
The paragraph about inbreeding of carrots, and the paragraph about Beta vulgaris, and the speculation about domesticating wild plants are unfortunate (and should be deleted by Mr. Coleman from his web site in order to make professor Zhang's work more accessible to western scientists, farmers, and plant
I have often wondered about epigenetics as it relates to fowl and livestock... Domesticated pheasants released into the wild sure are different behaviorally. There's the cultural aspects of incubator raised birds not having a role model to teach them proper pheasant culture, but I wonder if there ain't an epigenetic component as well, especially associated with female cells, even if it gets lost by the male cells.
And in regards to plants, I wonder if part of localizing a plant to my garden has an epigenetic component as well, of certain previously inactive genes being activated already in the embryo because something about my garden triggered their activation in the mother plant.
The ECIWO theory can be summed up into the following 4 key points:
1. An ECIWO is a specialized embryo at a certain stage of development, which is a component of an organism. An ECIWO is first a relatively independent unit of development, and many also have different directions and different degrees of specialization, so they have the ability of boundless metamorphoses and can thereby become the different organs or parts of an organism.
2. The ECIWO is a universal structural and functional unit constituting an organism. An organism is composed of multilevel ECIWOs at different stages of development and with different specialization. In an organism any relatively independent part relatively clear boundaries to its surrounding regions in both structure and function is an ECIWO. A certain ECIWO can be divided into many ECIWO of lower levels. And many ECIWOs can compose an ECIWO of a higher. In a multicellular organism. Between the level of the individual whole body and the level of the cell, there exist ECIWOs contained grade by grade. An individual whole body is an ECIWO whose developmental degree is the highest, and a single somatic cell is an ECIWO whose developmental degree is the lowest. They are both special cases of the ECIWO.
3. A certain ECIWO develops from an ECIWO with a lower degree of development. In an organism coming from sexual reproduction, the common origin of all the ECIWOs is a zygote. Starting from cleavage, it is a process in development and specialization. The products. Namely new ECIWOs. Of each composed reproduction do not break away from the parent body. An organism is a clone composed of ECIWOs. The essence of the ontogenesis of an organism is the multiplication and the respective specialization of ECIWOs in the organism itself, a common natural culture medium.
4. In an organism. There exists constant substance exchange between different ECIWOs. So that the different ECIWOs in an organism may have basically the same living conditions and can coordinate with each other to serve whole body.
Embryo containing the information of the whole organism
7/24/2008
The Outline of the ECIWO Theory
Yingqing Zhang, Professor
(ECIWO Biology Institute, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250100, P. R. China)
Do various organs or various relatively independent parts of the plant have the same essence? It also can say, are branches, leaves, leaflets, leaf lobes, veins, leaf bunches, flowers, calyxes, petals, carpels, stamens, pollens, roots, cells etc. all the same in essence? This is an important problem of universal significance in botany.
Previous studies have not solved the problem. For example, Goethe believed various organs of the plant are all the metamorphosis of the leaf. But Bower thought that leaves are secondary and it is branches that are the basic units of the plant. Though these results are very useful to explain the evolution among some organs, the same essence of all organs of the plant has not been found. However, I find that each of various organs or various relatively independent parts of the plant is a specialized new individual being both at a certain stage of its own ontogenesis and a component of the plant, and discover the essential unity of various organs of the plant. It provides a completely new view of the plant for understanding anew multitudinous problems in botany, and opens a way for directionally changing the characters of the plant according to human needs.
In the past, the term Embryo meant a new individual at the early stage of ontogenesis, namely, the young. However, I use the term Embryo in wide sense and it means generally a new individual that may be at every stage of ontogenesis, no matter whether it is at early, middle or late stage. For example, the zygote can be regarded as a embryo at the earliest stage of ontogenesis, and adult can be regarded as a embryo at the very late stage of ontogenesis. I have put forward the view that an organism not only develops from an embryo but also is composed of multitudinous embryos at various levels below the whole organism. An embryo composing the organism has three characteristics: 1, it lives in the parent body and is a component of the parent body; 2, it is specialized and performs a certain function in the organism to serve the whole; 3, it is at a certain stage of its own ontogenesis, and in many cases, it cannot continue to develop into an independent adult because the embryo is specialized and the whole organism inhibits its development. I have named such an embryo an ECIWO(an acronym for Embryo Containing the Information of the Whole Organism). The definition of the ECIWO is a specialized embryo being both at a certain stage of its own ontogenesis and a component of the whole organism.
This paper will prove that various organs or various relatively independent parts of a plant, such as branches, leaves, leaflets, leaf lobes, veins, leaf bunches, flowers, calyxes, petals, carpels, stamens, pollens, roots, metamorphosis branches and leaves, cells, etc. are all ECIWOs. This paper will found the plant ECIWO theory and also explain anew the nature of the development and the reason for producing stipuls, prophylls of a branch and compound, lobose, or opposite leaves.
To sum up, the plant ECIWO theory has the following key points.
① An ECIWO is a specialized embryo being both at a certain stage of development and a component of the whole plant. An ECIWO is a relatively independent new individual first, and then it may be the component of the plant. The condition that a part of a plant may bean ECIWO is that the part has relatively clear boundaries to its surrounding parts in structure and function, so it can relatively be isolated from other parts. In a plant, any relatively independent part with relatively clear boundaries to its surrounding parts in structure and function is an ECIWO.
② The autonomous development of an ECIWO is the ontogenesis of the ECIWO as a relatively independent new individual. In a plant, each stage of the autonomous development of an ECIWO has its corresponding stage in the ontogenesis of the plant. An ECIWO at a certain stage of the autonomous development rough recapitulates the course from the early stage to the corresponding stage of the ontogenesis of the plant, and the ECIWO is similar in general character marks to the plant at the corresponding stage of the ontogenesis. ECIWOs may have different degrees of autonomous development and may also have different directions and different degrees of specialization, so they may have the ability of boundless metamorphoses and can become different organs and parts of the plant.
③ A plant is composed of multiplicate ECIWOs at different stages of development and with different specialization. A certain ECIWO can be divided into many ECIWOs of lower levels, and many ECIWOs can compose an ECIWO of a higher level. In a multi cellular plant, there exist multiple ECIWOs contained grade by grade between the level of the whole plant and the cell level, and the whole plant is the ECIWO whose developmental degree is the highest, and a single somatic cell is an ECIWO whose developmental degree is the lowest. They are both the special cases of the ECIWO. In a plant, there exist substance changes among different ECIWOs, and ECIWOs can coordinate each other and serve the whole plant.
④ The nature of the development of the plant is the ECIWO multiplication, the respective development of ECIWOs and the respective specialization of ECIWOs. In the past, the cell theory has discovered the unity among different cells, but it can not solve the problem of the unity of different organs above the cell level. However, the plant ECIWO theory has discovered that the various organs or the various relatively independent parts of each level from the cell to the whole plant are all ECIWOs and all have essential unity. The cell is only one kind of ECIWOs, so the cell theory of the plant has been contained by the plant ECIWO theory. The totipotency of the somatic cell is the basis of the existence of the ECIWO. Owing to the semiconservative replication of DNA and the mitosis of cells, in general, a somatic cell has the same whole set of genes as the zygote. In artificial medium, the somatic cell separated from the plant may develop into a new individual; but in thebody of the parent itself, namely the natural medium, the somatic cell that is not separated from the plant may also develop to a new individual and may specialize in the development course, so that any relatively independent part can become a specialized embryo at a certain stage of development, namely, an ECIWO. In addition, there is a clear and major difference between the plant ECIWO theory and the totipotency theory of the somatic cell. The latter points out that the somatic cell has the latent ability to develop to a new individual, while the former points out that it is a fact that the somatic cell develops to anew individual in the natural plant itself. The totipotency theory of the somatic cell alone can not explain the nature of various organs or relatively independent parts of the plant, and can not explain the unity and the variety of various organs or various relatively independent parts of the plant either.
The plant ECIWO theory discovers that a plant consists of symbiotic and multiple ECIWOs. And different parts of a plant are the same in essence, namely, they are all ECIWOs. So, the theory has provided a completely new view of the plant. This may be a fundamental and conceptual change for botany, so it will exert important influence on various theoretical and applied fields related to plants. For an example, an ECIWO is a new individual in essence, so it can have both heredity and variability, and the variability is determined to a great extent by the certain character of the position where the ECIWO lives in the parent, and the variability in the progeny is towards increasing the certain character of the position of the parent. So, that the ECIWO at the certain position is used as the reproduce material may set off the directive variation. About this problem, I have advanced the theory of the dynamic equilibrium between cDNA retrojoining and loss in the genome, the theory of ECIWO localized seed selection being effective, the method of the ECIWO localized seed selection and the theory of the trans-geno combination for the strength of the expected character based on the ECIWO theory. The method of the ECIWO localized seed selection has been used successfully in the fields of agriculture, horticulture, plant tissue culture etc.16 The plant ECIWO theory also has a general biological significance. It will greatly help people to understand and accept the general ECIWO theory that the general organism including the human body and other animals is composed of ECIWOs.
Larger seeds tend to produce larger plants because they get going quicker after planting, and more leaf area at an earlier stage allows more sunlight to be captured.
Many seed companies inherently know this and have implemented the practice of discarding the smaller seeds before selling them. With current seed sorting equipment the process is done automatically without the need of selecting individual seeds. One enterprising seed company I saw even went so far as to only offer for sale the largest 10% of their seed crop. It's harder to do this however with the hand collection systems used by small scale growers, so knowing which parts of the plant produce larger seeds can be helpful.
I agree that the practice of planting only the largest seeds on a plant may improve cultural aspects of the crop: The phenotype. But I can't see how it would do anything to improve the genotype.
There is definitely a cultural disconnect going on. (The article was apparently written by Stephen M. Coleman of California, who seems to have a limited understanding of genetics.) The first time I read it I was going to write a scathing rebuke... However, on a second reading the article contains much valuable information if I can overlook the obvious glaring flaws...
The basic premise of the the work of professor Zhang in China is that some parts of the plant produce larger seeds that grow more vigorously than other parts of the plant, due to either more stored energy or less virus load. And that if we plant the better seeds that we will get larger harvests. It's a subtle effect (around 5% to 20%) that might not be noticed unless one was doing careful measurements.... Who would notice if their pole bean crop produced 86,000 beans instead of 80,000? That difference is smaller than the year to year variation due to weather, and it's smaller than the plant to plant differences in the same year due to variability in the soil.
So when it speaks of "variety improvement" or "genetic potential", I interpret that, from my western perspective, as synonyms for Mendelian genetics.... But the article is really talking about what I would call the phenotype: The measurable characteristics of the plant after it has interacted with it's environment, and not about the actual genes of the plant... After all, the method is called something like "every part of the plant is genetically the same as every other part".
I'm speculating that we could get similar improvement in yield by planting the seed producing plants at wider spacings in richer soils with a more favorable water/sunlight regimen: The idea being that larger less virus loaded propagules produce better plants and thus higher yields.
It's easy to say that the position of a corn kernel on the cob affects it's phenotype and the phenotype of the plant it produces the next year... We have a long tradition in the usa of selecting corn seeds for planting from the middle third of the cob because the tip kernels tend to be small and to produce less vigorous plants, (who knows why the bottom 1/3 isn't favored....)
The paragraph about inbreeding of carrots, and the paragraph about Beta vulgaris, and the speculation about domesticating wild plants are unfortunate (and should be deleted by Mr. Coleman from his web site in order to make professor Zhang's work more accessible to western scientists, farmers, and plant
I have often wondered about epigenetics as it relates to fowl and livestock... Domesticated pheasants released into the wild sure are different behaviorally. There's the cultural aspects of incubator raised birds not having a role model to teach them proper pheasant culture, but I wonder if there ain't an epigenetic component as well, especially associated with female cells, even if it gets lost by the male cells.
And in regards to plants, I wonder if part of localizing a plant to my garden has an epigenetic component as well, of certain previously inactive genes being activated already in the embryo because something about my garden triggered their activation in the mother plant.
The ECIWO theory can be summed up into the following 4 key points:
1. An ECIWO is a specialized embryo at a certain stage of development, which is a component of an organism. An ECIWO is first a relatively independent unit of development, and many also have different directions and different degrees of specialization, so they have the ability of boundless metamorphoses and can thereby become the different organs or parts of an organism.
2. The ECIWO is a universal structural and functional unit constituting an organism. An organism is composed of multilevel ECIWOs at different stages of development and with different specialization. In an organism any relatively independent part relatively clear boundaries to its surrounding regions in both structure and function is an ECIWO. A certain ECIWO can be divided into many ECIWO of lower levels. And many ECIWOs can compose an ECIWO of a higher. In a multicellular organism. Between the level of the individual whole body and the level of the cell, there exist ECIWOs contained grade by grade. An individual whole body is an ECIWO whose developmental degree is the highest, and a single somatic cell is an ECIWO whose developmental degree is the lowest. They are both special cases of the ECIWO.
3. A certain ECIWO develops from an ECIWO with a lower degree of development. In an organism coming from sexual reproduction, the common origin of all the ECIWOs is a zygote. Starting from cleavage, it is a process in development and specialization. The products. Namely new ECIWOs. Of each composed reproduction do not break away from the parent body. An organism is a clone composed of ECIWOs. The essence of the ontogenesis of an organism is the multiplication and the respective specialization of ECIWOs in the organism itself, a common natural culture medium.
4. In an organism. There exists constant substance exchange between different ECIWOs. So that the different ECIWOs in an organism may have basically the same living conditions and can coordinate with each other to serve whole body.
