Iron is an essential micronutrient for plants but it is often not bioavailable in the soil. Thus, plants have evolved difference processes for iron sensing and iron uptake. OLIGOPEPTIDE TRANSPORTER 3 (OPT3) is an important iron transporter and is a component of the systemic network that mediates iron deficiency responses in Arabidopsis. This study by […]
Iron, an essential nutrient for plants and symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria, needs to be complexed with organic chelators (i.e. citrate) for in planta transport. Kryvoruchko and colleagues have identified a nodule-specific citrate transporter of Medicago truncatula, MtMATE67 (Medicago truncatula Multidrug and Toxic Compound Extrusion 67) using in planta localization, mutant analysis and electrophysiological analysis. MtMATE67 localizes […]
Organogenesis is an essential process in embryonic development. Additionally, plants can generate new organs, such as roots, from postembryonic tissues utilizing postembryonic pathways. Bustillo-Avendaño and colleagues investigated de novo root formation from Arabidopsis thaliana leaf tissue. They used microscopy, hormone treatments and mutant analysis to identify four main developmental stages and important regulatory factors. Initial cytokinin and auxin biosynthesis in […]
The global demand for cocoa (from Theobroma cacao) has been increasing, but production has not kept up with demand due to global climate change, pest and disease issues, and low productivity due to old cocoa trees. Currently, grafting and seeds (produced by cross-pollination) are used to propagate cocoa, resulting in heterogeneous genetic backgrounds and thus […]
The phytohormones jasmonic acid (JA) and salicylic acid (SA) play key roles in how plants respond to microbes. However, this interplay between JA, SA and microbes is less understood in non-angiosperm linages. de Vries and colleagues examine JA/SA signalling between the water fern Azolla filiculoides and its nitrogen-fixing cyanobiont Nostoc azollae. They use data from […]
The asymmetric distribution of the phytohormone auxin is essential for tropic responses of seed plants but it is unclear if this distribution is essential for root negative phototropism as well. To understand the role of auxin distribution in root negative phototropism in Arabidopsis, Kimura and colleagues used pharmacological and genetic analyses of wildtype, auxin biosynthesis […]
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. The shoot apical meristem (SAM) is essential for the adaptation of aerial plant tissue architecture to changes in the environment. This paper by Landrein and colleagues connects changes in the plant environment (soil type, soil fertility, nitrate concentration) to changes in the SAM, using quantitative microscopy, grafting experiments, and mutant […]
Phytochromes are photoreceptors found in many organisms including bacteria, fungi and plants. Plant phytochromes regulate many aspects of plant growth and development, including germination, shade avoidance, defense against pests, and senescence. Phytochromes most likely transduce signals through the degradation of phytochrome-interacting transcription factors (PIFs) by the N-terminal photosensory module. The C-terminal module, which includes a […]
As a tree grows in height, increasing the length of the transport pathway, the hydraulic resistance of the vascular tissues should increase. It is not clear if trees only rely on passive transport mechanisms (no active loading of sugars) to move carbohydrates from shoots to roots. To answer this question, Savage and colleagues analyzed sieve […]