Tianhu Sun ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2513-1387 Plant Breeding and Genetics Section, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853 [email protected] Astaxanthin is the reddish carotenoid pigment that gives color to shrimp, salmon, and flamingo. However, these animals don’t synthesize astaxanthin by themselves. Instead, microalgae are the initial producers of astaxanthin in nature. Because […]
Zhang et al. explore the mechanisms underlying elaborate petal development and specialized character formation in Nigella damascena. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00330 By Rui Zhang, Xuehao Fu, Caiyao Zhao, Jie Cheng, Hongyan Shan, and Hongzhi Kong Background: Petals can be simple or elaborate, depending on whether they have modifications along their margins or on their adaxial/abaxial side, […]
Larson et al. examine the interactions between subunits of the exocyst and SNARE complex and the effects of these interactions on trafficking, secretion, and growth. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00280 Emily R Larson1,3, Jitka Ortmannová2,4, Naomi A Donald1, Jonas Alvim1, Michael R Blatt1 and Viktor Žárský2 1 Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Biophysics, Bower Building, University […]
Plant seeds store nutrients in the form of protein, starch, and oil to support seed germination and seedling establishment. The seed nutrient reserves are supplied with carbon and nitrogen assimilated in vegetative tissues, where primary metabolism oscillates in a circadian manner (Farré and Weise, 2012). However, whether the nutrient accumulation in developing seeds is also […]
Author: Sjon Hartman 1,2 ORCID: 0000-0002-6709-6436 1 Plant Ecophysiology, Institute of Environmental Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH, Utrecht, The Netherlands 2 Corresponding author contact: [email protected] Even moderate droughts can greatly limit plant performance and reduce agricultural yield. Plants have evolved a wide range of traits to acclimate to drought (Yordanov et al., 2000), […]
Li et al. discover a diurnal pattern in sucrose content in developing maize endosperm that relies on the action of an E3 ubiquitin ligase on the master regulator transcription factor Opaque2. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00352 By Chaobin Li, Zeyang Ma, Rentao Song, China Agricultural University Background: Circadian rhythms allow plants to synchronize their physiology and biochemistry […]
Circadian rhythms are ubiquitous among living things. A core set of so-called clock genes and their products assemble an oscillatory network that provides a rhythm to anticipate dawn and dusk (Hsu and Harmer, 2014). The circadian clock regulates the day/night rhythms of plants and light itself has many ways of feeding information into the functioning […]
Raxwal et al. uncover the roles of the RNA helicase and ATPase UPF1 in regulating gene expression. The Plant Cell (2020) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00244 By Vivek K. Raxwal and Karel Riha CEITEC Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic Background: Gene expression, i.e., the formation of functional proteins based on information encoded in genomes, is a multistep […]
Willems et al. establish that meristem organization and development rely on Anaphase Promoting Complex/Cyclosome-mediated breakdown of a cyclin. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00208 By Alex Willemsa,b and Lieven De Veyldera,b aDepartment of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, Ghent, B-9052, Belgium bCenter for Plant Systems Biology, VIB, Ghent, B-9052, Belgium Background: Cell division in multicellular organisms […]