“…When desiccation is imposed prematurely at certain stages prior to the completion of development, a switch in synthetic events is elicited; events unique to development, such as synthesis of storage protein, are terminated, and syntheses associated with germination and growth are initiated (Evans et al, 1975;Dasgupta and Bewley, 1982;Adams et al, 1983;Kermode and Bewley, 1985a, 1985b, 1986bKermode et al, 1985;Misra and Bewley, 1985;Cornford et al, 1986;Rosenberg and Rinne, 1987;Oishi and Bewley, 1992). In effecting this switch in gene expression, desiccation appears to act primarily at the transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels (Misra and Bewley, 1985;Cornford et al, 1986;Kermode et al, 1989c;Jiang and Kermode, 1994;Jiang et al, 1995aJiang et al, , 1995b. We are interested in examining events at the molecular leve1 caused by drying, which ultimately result in the off-or down-regulation of development-related genes and the onregulation of germinative and postgerminative genes.…”