Antosz et al. provide insight into the complex process of transcription elongation by RNA polymerase II http://www.plantcell.org/content/29/4/854.abstract The genetic blueprint for the production of proteins is stored in the DNA of a plant cell. In a first step, the enzyme RNA polymerase II generates…

Kidokoro et al. investigate how plants sense cold and activate cold tolerance http://www.plantcell.org/content/29/4/760.abstract. Cold stress can be just as lethal as heat stress. When a cell freezes, the water inside it expands as it turns to ice. This can cause the cell membrane to rupture and lead…

Phenotyping, the process of measuring and analyzing observable plant characteristics, is a term used frequently in the College of Agriculture these days—and a technique that is now automated for field research at Purdue. The Indiana Corn and Soybean Innovation Center, a 25,500-square-foot facility…

For the remainder of June and July, several Plantae Fellows will take turns editing the What We’re Reading series. The Plantae Fellows were selected for their interest in communicating science, and they are looking forward to wearing the Editor hat and sharing their selections with you in the coming…

Calcium signaling is a common plant response to many different stimuli. Vincent et al. used a fluorescent calcium reporter, GCaMP3, to record calcium responses in Arabidopsis to feeding by aphids (specifically, the green peach aphid Myzus persicae). Through analysis of various mutants, key components…

Anyone who is trying to manage a laboratory on a budget will enjoy reading about the efforts of Henrici et al., who have designed a pair of plasmids that together can be digested with one of two restriction enzymes to produce either 100-bp or 1000-bp DNA molecular weight markers. As the authors report,…

Pathogen perception leads to local and systemic immune responses including systemic acquired resistance (SAR). The nature of the mobile signals and their movements remain uncertain. Riedlmeier et al. demonstrated that certain monoterpenes including α- and β-pinene accumulate in SAR-inducing conditions…

Iron is an essential nutrient that plants assimilate from the soil. Moderate iron deficiency induces an increase in primary root length and lateral root production. Satbhai et al. examined natural variation of root responses and showed a correlation between root length and allelic variation at the FRO2…