Plants demonstrate increased susceptibility to pathogens upon exposure to heat stress, apparently due to suppressed salicylic acid (SA) accumulation and subsequently decreased effector-triggered immunity. How exactly does heat stress cause this suppression, and how can we take advantage of genetics to increase plant resilience? Kim et al. discovered that heat stress acts on SA immunity […]
Proper development requires an aging program that is regulated throughout the entire lifespan of an organism as well as across generations. In plants, reproductive cells are derived from differentiated cells, and thus the aging program encoded in these reproductive cells must be rejuvenated per generation. So, how exactly is the cycling of this program controlled? […]
To better understand plant responses to different environments, Lou et al. compared Arabidopsis thaliana accessions derived from Sichuan (high precipitation/regular flooding) and Tibet (arid) to isolate genetic adaptations towards flooding stress. The two accessions showed divergent phenotypes: the Sichuan accession was able to recover much more effectively after submergence, while the Tibet accession could better […]
Organ size is imperative to biological function. In plants, newly-developing organs start out as a pool of meristematic cells, which set the number of cells in the organ through regulated iterations of cellular division; eventually, these cells transition out of the cell cycle and differentiate, during which they may undergo expansion/elongation. Ultimately, these two phases […]
Recently, the UN Environment Programme identified excessive reactive nitrogen (N) resulting from anthropogenic activity as one of the five emerging threats facing our planet. Much of this derives from agricultural practices in which N fertilizers are inefficiently applied to crops, a significant proportion of N being lost to surrounding environments. Udvardi et al. outline a […]
Plant biology as a field of study encompasses a rich plethora of subjects, some of which themselves are their own fields. Maarten Koornneef, in this memoir-style article, describes how genetics in particular shaped his career that saw the rise of Arabidopsis as the lovable poster child of plant biology today. Starting with a background in […]
Chicana feminist writer Cherríe Moraga wrote in her anthology This Bridge Called My Back, with regards to the necessary inclusion of women of color in contemporary progressive politics: “It is not always a matter of the actual bodies in the room, but of a life dedicated to a growing awareness of who and what is […]
Humans have derived inspiration from innumerable corners of the natural world. Plants of diverse forms have inspired many “biomimetics,” or technical products derived from biological models. Speck and Speck review how plant-based biomimetics have developed over time and elaborate on their current use. An interesting perspective from this review is the generalization of the biomimetic […]
Plants demonstrate a gorgeous diversity in cell types to adapt to their unique environments. Certain cell types, such as the epidermal, cortex, and vascular cells within plant roots, or the classically-defined root developmental zones (meristematic, elongation, and maturation), are homologous in angiosperms. However, how tightly they are conserved across species is unknown. To give insight […]