Entries by Eva Marie Gomez Alverez

OsMADS14 and NF-YB1 cooperate in the direct activation of OsAGPL2 and Waxy during starch synthesis in rice endosperm (New Phytol.)

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Rice grain is mainly composed of starch, which provides the necessary energy and sugars for successful germination and seedling development. Since rice is the most widely consumed crop, studying the regulators that control starch synthesis is crucial to ensure food security for more than half the world‘s population. In monocotyledonous species like rice, FUL-like proteins […]

GWAS on multiple traits identifies mitochondrial ACONITASE3 as important for acclimation to submergence stress (Plant Physiol.)

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Climate change is affecting the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events such as floods, reducing crop production severely. Submergence might lead to a lack of O2, light, and carbon dioxide, having an impact on the carbohydrate content and ATP synthesis. In this work, Xiangxiang et al. characterise a collection of 387 Arabidopsis accessions, which […]

TT2 controls rice thermotolerance through SCT1-dependent alteration of wax biosynthesis (Nature Plants)

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Global warming severely affects agricultural harvests, risking food security. To deal with heat stress, plants show different strategies. Indeed, heat increases intracellular Ca2+ levels to activate a heat shock response. In addition, GTP-binding proteins, which transduce extracellular signals to intracellular effectors, regulate Ca2+ currents when plants face abiotic stresses through calmodulin-binding proteins (CaM). In this […]

Phosphatidic acid modulates MPK3- and MPK6- mediated hypoxia signaling in Arabidopsis (Plant Cell)

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Plants experience changes in gene expression and cellular metabolism to improve their survival to abiotic stresses, such as hypoxia. It has been observed that environmental signals induce phospholipase D (PLD) which generates phosphatidic acid (PA) by cleaving membrane phospholipids. Indeed, submergence induces the accumulation of PA, however, the mechanisms underlying this response have been unknown. […]

Prediction of conserved variable heat and cold stress response in maize using cis-regulatory information (Plant Cell)

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Several transcription factors (TFs) have been identified previously as responsive to cold and heat stresses in maize. Variation in TF binding sites (TFBS) determine changes in the expression of target genes in response to the aforementioned stresses. Traditionally, single varieties were used to study TFBS variation rather than different species which are, putatively, a source […]