Over 450 million years of land plant evolution has led to the acquisition of diverse and often overlapping sets of defense responses that limit pathogen infection. Decades of research has uncovered canonical immune pathways that provide resistance to specialist (hemi)-biotrophic pathogens relying on living plants for nutrition. In comparison, less is known about resistance strategies […]
Garcia et al. discover a plant-specific component of TRAPP membrane trafficking complexes with important roles in plant development. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00044. By Veder Garcia and Zhi-Yong Wang Department of Plant Biology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA Background: Cells use membrane vesicles to deliver proteins to their target cellular locations. In yeast and animals, Transport […]
Nitrogen is an essential component of amino acids, nucleic acids, and even chlorophyll. Plants cannot grow without it. However, acquiring nitrogen is difficult as plants cannot use the most common form, atmospheric nitrogen (N2). To solve this, a select group of flowering plants have evolved to harness the power of nitrogen fixing bacteria. These plants […]
Author: Stefanie Wege [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0002-7232-5889 Affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, PRC, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, Waite Research Institute, University of Adelaide, Waite Campus, Glen Osmond 5064, South Australia, Australia In chloroplasts, the pigments of the light harvesting complex channel light energy to photosystem II (PSII) and PSI. […]
Ge et al explore the function of a transcription factor that functions upstream of a master regulator of tracheary element differentiation. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00689 By Shating Ge1, Juan Xu2, and Shuqun Zhang3 1 College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210095, China. 2 State Key Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, College of […]
Seed size is a major component of seed yield. Unveiling the control of seed size provides a theoretical foundation for developing new strategies to boost crop production in the context of global food security. How plants determine their seed size is also a fascinating question in developmental biology. In angiosperms, successful seed development requires coordination […]
Department of Plant Pathology, Kansas State University, 1712 Claflin Road, Throckmorton Hall, Manhattan, KS, 66506, USA [email protected] Male fertility in angiosperms requires specific spatiotemporal gene expression patterns and cellular differentiation during male reproductive development (Wilson and Zhang, 2009; Lin et al., 2017). The formation of the male gametophyte begins inside the anther with the formation […]
Huang et al. identify a new cellulose synthase inhibitor. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00202. By Lei Huang and Chunhua Zhang Background: Cellulose is a polymer of b-1,4-D-glucose that serves as an essential source of everyday objects such as cloth, paper, and biofuel. Plant cellulose is synthesized by protein complexes known as cellulose synthase (CESA) complexes (CSCs), which […]
If you close your eyes and think about the most delicious fruit you have ever tasted, it is likely that one specific characteristic will come to mind (and mouth!): its sweetness. Humans have a natural appreciation of plant sugars, and it is no surprise that enhanced sugar content is among the most desired traits by […]