Archeological remains and genetic analyses of ancient DNA have revealed that the loss of seed dispersal marks the onset of domestication for sexually reproduced crops such as cereal, legume and oils seed crops, for which annual cultivation is based on sowing seeds. In contrast, less is known about the…

Most of the current methods for assessing seed viability are time-consuming and destructive. As an alternative, some authors have suggested using procedures based on delayed luminescence; an ultra-weak light emitted by biological materials exposed to illumination. Here, Adeboye and Börner review the…

The thylakoid membranes are located in the stroma of chloroplasts and house the machinery for the photosynthetic light reactions. They emerge largely de novo during the transition from pro-plastids into mature, photosynthesizing chloroplasts. Generating new thylakoid membranes requires a supply of lipids,…

In multicellular organisms, the patterning of different cell types in spatial arrays is regulated through several mechanisms, one of which is lateral inhibition, a process well characterized in metazoans. In this process, an individual cell transmits signals to neighboring cells to instruct a different…

The AT-hook motif nuclear localized (AHL) transcription factor family has one or two DNA-binding motifs to bind to AT rich DNA regions, and they also have a conserved PPC-DUF domain for protein-protein interactions. AHLs affect a wide range of biotic and abiotic responses but the mechanism of how they…

Plasticity in plant development comes from the meristematic cells that are maintained throughout plant growth and among other things produce lateral organs such as shoot branches.  In this paper, Cao et al. show that the self-activation loop of SHOOT MERISTEMLESS (STM), a meristem marker gene that encodes…

Plant cells are known to initiate local and systemic signaling in response to certain stressful conditions to safeguard cells in the immediate vicinity as well as that are far from the site of stimuli. In this study, Cheval and co-workers have characterized a pathway in plant cells for sensing and responding…

Parasitic plants develop unique structures called haustoria that penetrate into the host plant vasculature, from which they take nutrients. During this process, haustorial epidermal cells differentiate into specialized cells called intrusive cells, which eventually re-differentiate into a xylem bridge…