There are more than 7 million crop accessions in gene banks around the world, however the information records for them are in multiple formats, making a comparison between and within collections difficult. Extrapolating from a new paper by Milner et al. (Nature Genetics 51: pages319–326) Langridge and Waugh suggest a framework to efficiently utilize this […]
Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) represses the expression of its gene targets epigenetically and VERNALIZATION 2 (VRN2) is a subunit of the PRC2 complex in Arabidopsis. The PRC2-VRN2 complex, among other roles, regulates flowering after long cold exposure. Gibbs and coworkers identified VRN2 as a possible target for the N end rule pathway, since it […]
Schaefer and colleagues have developed Camoco (Co-analysis of molecular components), which integrates data from GWAS and co-expression networks to identify high confidence candidate genes associated with a phenotype of interest. To evaluate the program they used GWAS and co-expression data from maize. They used gene expression data from three datasets: data from whole-seedling transcriptome from […]
Previous reports have shown that M. polymorpha DNA methylation status varies during its life cycle and it contains only one copy of the METHYLTRANSFERASE1 (MET1) orthologous gene. MET1 is responsible of CG methylation in angiosperms. Ikeda and collaborators generated MpMET mutants using the CRISPR/CAS9 system. The mutants showed abnormal shape, growth delay, reduced size and organs for asexual and sexual […]
Land plants had to acquire new ways to occupy the terrestrial environment, including the innovative shooting system with organs in a radial position. This new 3D form of growth was possible thanks to the capacity to rotate stem cells divisions through different orientation planes. In Arabidopsis the CLAVATA (CLV) and WUSCHEL (WUS) pathways regulate stem […]
Plants and cars need energy and are powered by a process that has changed depending on the environment: photosynthesis, in the case of plants and an engine in the case of cars. Hartzell and coworkers make an analogy in the evolution of the original C3 pathway and the evolution of the internal combustion engine (ICE) […]
REIL1 and REIL2 proteins in Arabidopsis are homologs of REI1, a yeast ribosome biogenesis factor. REI1 facilitates 60S ribosomal maturation in yeast. Beine-Golovchuk and co-workers have studied the cold acclimation response of the double mutant reil1-1 reil2-1. Previous studies by the same group showed that the double mutant has growth defects below 10°C. In reil1-1 […]
Auxin and cytokinin play critical roles in determination of cell fate in the shoot apical meristem (SAM). Until now auxin’s role was thought to be confined to the peripheral zone (PZ), promoting cell differentiation and organogenesis, mediated by AR5/MP. However, studies using GC-MS have shown the presence of IAA in the central zone (CZ). MP […]
The earliest report about the influence of light quality in tomato fruit biology dates back to 1954, in which it was shown that red /far red light regulates fruit pigmentation reversibly. Using fruit-specific RNAi silencing of SlPHYA, SlPHYB2 or SlPHYB1/B2, Bianchetti and co-workers have shown the different roles of these fruit-localized phytochromes. The plastids of […]