Plants form leaves with highly reproducible sizes and shapes by employing a conserved set of developmental regulators. During early leaf growth, a zone of high cell proliferation is formed towards the proximal end of the lamina.  Proliferating cells progressively exit this zone and enter the distal…

It’s like the plot of every spy movie you’ve ever seen. If you could infiltrate your opponent’s headquarters what would you target to disable your enemy? This is the question addressed in new work by Petre et al. More than ten years ago, a family of small proteins was identified, the RXLR proteins…

Two very exciting papers have come out this week in Nature that address a long-standing question about the relative contributions of two different plant immunity pathways. PTI (pathogen-triggered immunity) recognizes conserved pathogen signatures at the plant cell surface; a model system for PTI is the…

Review: Can smart nutrient applications optimize the plant's hidden half to improve drought resistance? The root system has three key functions: support/anchoring, uptake of water, and uptake of nutrients. Many questions remain about how roots integrate all of these functions into the architecture…

Frederickson D. Entila first author of Gene expression evolution in pattern-triggered immunity within Arabidopsis thaliana and across Brassicaceae species Current Position: PhD student, Max-Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research Education: BSc Biology, Major in Microbiology, University of…

Ying Chen, first author Distinct Cellular Strategies Determine Sensitivity to Mild Drought of Arabidopsis Natural Accessions Current Position: PhD candidate at the VIB-UGent Center for Plant System Biology, Ghent, Belgium Education: M.S. (2013 -  2016), Institute of Botany, the Chinese Academy…

Zhang et al. explore the mechanisms of epigenetic information transfer in plants. The Plant Cell By Pingxian Zhang and Xiaofeng Gu Biotechnology Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China Background: Both genetic and epigenetic information must be…

Plantae Presents: Yvon Jaillais, Rosa Laura López-Marqués, and Antje Heese Special Event: Plant Physiology Focus Issue on Dynamic Membranes Recorded March 10th Membranes are highly dynamic structures, with the timescales for turnover of lipid and protein spanning orders of magnitude…