The spatial configuration of roots is a complex and critical trait for productivity that is impacted by abiotic stresses such as drought, waterlogging, and salinity. Soil salinity is expected to affect 50% of agricultural land worldwide by 2050. This research describes that the loss of function of qSOR1…

Regeneration traits –such as germination strategies, seed dormancy, and seedling establishment– are presumably shaped by environmental variables that operate at different temporal and spatial scales. However, empirical evidence about the variation is lacking for most regeneration seed traits. Here,…

Review. Roles of plant retinoblastoma protein: cell cycle and beyond The cell cycle is at the heart of processes such as cell division, fate acquisition and cell cycle exit towards differentiation. Decades of cell cycle research in animals and yeast have outlined the main components that control the…

When we cut out cookies from rolled-out dough, we often end up with unwanted dough scraps, and sometimes the dough sticks to the cookie-cutter, resulting in misshapen cookies. Just like these misshapen cookies, faulty or aberrant RNAs can arise in cells due to mistakes during transcription, RNA processing,…

Liu et al. connect small RNA biogenesis and meiotic recombination by examining RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 6. The Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00213   By Changzhen Liu, Yi Shen and Zhukuan Cheng  Background: Meiosis is a specialized cell division that takes place in sexually…

Lena Maria Müller Boyce Thompson Institute, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA 0000-0002-6036-4514 [email protected]   The shoot and inflorescence architecture of grasses are characterized by complex branching patterns, which contribute to the great diversity of this plant clade (Whipple 2017).…

Rich-Griffin et al. uncover cell type-specific gene networks that function in plant immunity in Arabidopsis roots. The Plant Cell (2020) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00154   By Charlotte Rich-Griffin1, Ruth Eichmann1,2, Sascha Ott3,4,5 & Patrick Schäfer1,2  1School of Life Sciences,…

From the flat white sheets of our favourite weed Arabidopsis thaliana to the colourful cups and spirals of orchids, petals come in a spectacular array of shapes, sizes, colours and textures. These elaborate forms have often evolved to attract pollinators. For example, bee orchids produce petals that…