Plants are immobile and their cells are contained within cell walls, yet they demonstrate vast post-embryonic developmental plasticity. Evidence shows that the fate of the cell is likely determined by its location within the plant, but the specific mechanisms and pathways involved are currently unknown. Zerin et al. investigated the cell wall signaling pathways that […]
How do plants protect themselves from microbial invaders? One response is the closure of plasmodesmata to stop the spread of microbial effector proteins that help pathogens evade the immune response, protecting neighboring uninfected cells. While the phenomenon of plasmodesmata closure in response of microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) is well-documented, the underlying signaling and mechanisms need […]
As both the power and accessibility of single-cell RNA sequencing increases, more reference datasets have become available, documenting the transcriptome within a variety of model plants. While invaluable resources that have pushed science forward, these datasets are often limited to single tissues or few timepoints. Additionally, they lack information on tissues like senescing leaves, flowers, […]
How can we precisely image plant tissues in super-resolution when approaching the optical limits of conventional microscopes? One solution lies in expansion microscopy, a technique that embeds tissue samples in an expandable hydrogel that proportionally increases the distances between structures, allowing the user to image them clearly on microscopes that would be diffraction-limited at such […]
Brassinosteroids are plant hormones that play important roles in cell proliferation and expansion, but it is still unclear exactly what those roles are. Vukasinovic and colleagues show, in Arabidopsis thaliana root cells, that instrinsic brassinosteroid gradients signal anticlinal division. Single-cell RNA sequencing and vertical microscopy with automatic root tracking were used to observe brassinosteroid activity […]