The author expresses sincere apprecialion to INIAP (National Autonomous Institute for Agricultural Research), Dr. Gustavo Enriquez, General Director; to UIP-PROMSA (Programa Nacional de Modernización del Sector Agropecuario), Dr. Julio Chang; and, to Dr. Jonathan Wooley of NRI (Natural Resources International) for the granting of the Ecuadorian scholarship (RI-MS-013) to pursue my studies at Oregon State University. I would like to thank Prof. Alvin Mosley for accepting me as a gradúate student in the Crop and Soil Science Department and for his opportune advice and inspiring positivism. I thank my co-adviser and friend Prof. Iliro Nonogaki for providing me the lab space and unlimited instruction from the bcginning of my íhesis research until final review of this manuscript. I am indebted to Prof. Henrik Stotz for serving as my minor professor and to Dr. Sergei Filichkin for his opportune advice. I thank Dr. Jeff Leonard for helping me with Arabidopsis transformation and for his advice. I thank Dr. Adriel Garay for permitting me to use facilities at the OSU Seed Laboratory for germination tests. I thank Prof. Kent Bradford University of California, Davis and Prof. Derek Bewley University of Guelph, Ganada for providing LeMANl and Le MANI cDNAs respectively.