Smit et al. uncover a feed-forward loop that controls vascular development in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00562 By Margot E. Smit1, Siobhán M. Brady2, and J. Peter Etchells3 1 Stanford University 2 UC Davis 3 Durham University Background: Vascular tissues transport water, salts, and photosynthates within the plant body. The xylem moves water and salts from […]
Author: Robert P Skelton1 skelrob@berkeley.edu Affiliation: Dept. of Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA Global demand for food security places an emphasis on a need to improve crop yield. The complexity of plant development and its interaction with dynamic growing environments and management practices challenges our ability to select optimal crop […]
Descriptive paragraph. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00682 By Hui Zhuang and Yunfeng Li Background: The spikelet, often mistaken for a “flower”, is actually an inflorescence unit and can produce one or more florets in some species of grass. This implies that it could be possible to increase the number of florets (grains) per spikelet and improve yield […]
Stalk lodging, a structural failure in which crop stalks break prior to harvest, can result in high grain moisture, reduce grain quality, and cause harvesting difficulties. For the popular high-yielding cereal maize (Zea mays), lodging may result in global annual yield reductions of approximately 5-20% (Flint-Garcia et al., 2003). Developing maize lines with improved stalk […]
Kim L Johnson La Trobe Institute for Agriculture & Food, Department of Animal, Plant and Soil Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3086, Australia In September 2019 hurricane Dorian swept across to the southeast coast of the USA and strong winds and downpours led to major crop losses in corn and soybean. There is little […]
Beyond its well-known role in muscle contraction, the cytoskeletal component actin participates in many critical cellular processes. Globular actin polymerizes into thin, flexible filaments that assemble into dynamic higher-order structures, such as bundles and networks. In addition to providing mechanical support, these structures organize the contents of the cytoplasm and play fundamental roles in cell […]
Gao et al. identify a transcription factor that regulates the expression of the large majority of genes involved in the iron homeostasis regulatory cascade. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00541 By Fei Gao, Florence Vignols, and Christian Dubos BPMP, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, SupAgro, Montpellier, France Background: Iron (Fe) is an essential micronutrient for plant growth and development […]
Lynn GL Richardson lynnr@msu.edu Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824 Chloroplasts, like their cyanobacterial ancestors, use binary fission to divide and generate new organelles. The origins of the division machinery stem from both the original eukaryotic host cell and cyanobacterial endosymbiont (Chen et al., 2018). During chloroplast division, a contractile […]
Traubenik et al. highlight the importance of translational control and mRNA decay for successful establishment of the nitrogen-fixing symbiosis. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00647 By Soledad Traubenik, Mauricio Reynoso, Flavio Blanco, and María Eugenia Zanetti Background: Legume plants have the capacity to establish a nitrogen-fixing symbiosis with soil bacteria, which has important implications in nature and agriculture. […]