Reactive oxygen species (ROS) production is a common early response to biotic or abiotic stresses. While an important messenger in both plants and animals, unrestricted accumulation of ROS has deleterious consequences such as cell death. Thus, the production of ROS is tightly controlled. A main component of extracellular ROS production is the evolutionarily conserved NADPH […]
Amna Mhamdi Ghent University, Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, and VIB Center for Plant Systems Biology, 9052 Ghent, Belgium Address correspondence to [email protected] Long thought to be unselective and often referred to as “housekeeping” enzymes, type 2A Protein Phosphatases (PP2A) have emerging specific regulatory functions in cell signaling (Luan, 2003; Durian et al., 2016; […]
Boxall et al. explore the effects of silencing phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase in a Crassulacean acid metabolism species. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00481 By Susie Boxall and James Hartwell Background: Severe droughts and high temperatures are becoming more frequent due to climate change, making it increasingly challenging to grow crops productively in many major agricultural regions worldwide. Scientists are […]
RNA degradation mechanisms control the quality and quantity of mRNAs and are crucial for plant cell viability. The major pathways for RNA degradation involve 5’-3’ or 3’-5’ exonucleolytic cleavage by exoribonucleases or the exosome complex, respectively, whereas targets of miRNAs are cleaved by RNA endonucleases (Zhang and Guo, 2017). The exoribonuclease XRN4 degrades mRNA intermediates […]
Lin et al. investigate how SUMOylation of a ribosomal protein affects cell size-mediated cell cycle control in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00301 By Yen-Ling Lin1,2,3 and Su-Chiung Fang1,2 1Biotechnology Center in Southern Taiwan, Academia Sinica, Tainan, Taiwan 2Agricultural Biotechnology Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan 3Ph.D. Program in Microbial Genomics, National Chung Hsing University and […]
During cell division, accurate tethering and release of newly replicated sister chromatids is essential for ensuring that each daughter cell receives a full set of chromosomes. To accomplish this, cells use cohesins that act as the “chromosomal glue”. These cohesins are a group of ring-shaped protein complexes that are widely conserved from yeast to plants […]
Nibau et al. explore the role of a cyclin-dependent kinase in meiosis. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00942 By Candida Nibau, Andrew Lloyd, Dylan Phillips and John Doonan IBERS, Aberystwyth University, UK Background: Cyclin-dependent kinases are involved in many cellular processes ranging from external signal perception, division and death. Our work has shown that CDKG1 is necessary […]
Ismayil et al. identify a virus that activates autophagy and reveal the underlying mechanism. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00759 By Asigul Ismayil, MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Plant Biology, Tsinghua-Peking Joint Center for Life Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Background: Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process that recycles damaged […]
At least five RNA polymerases (Pol I to Pol V) are known to exist in plant cells. Pol IV produces short transcripts that are converted into double-stranded RNAs by RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 2 (RDR2) and processed into 24-nucleotide (nt) small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) by DICER-LIKE 3 (DCL3). These siRNAs direct ARGONAUTE 4 (AGO4) or AGO6 […]