Entries by Magdalena Julkowska

A chloroplast-localized mitochondrial calcium uniporter transduces osmotic stress in Arabidopsis (Nature Plants)

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Calcium and chloroplasts are both at the heart of the signal transduction during environmental stress. Teardo et al. studied whether the chloroplast-localized mitochondrial calcium uniporter has a role in stress signaling. The group identified 6 homologs of mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) in Arabidopsis, but only one (cMCU) was carrying a clear chloroplast localization signature. The […]

Paleogenomic insights into the origins of French grapevine diversity (Nature Plants)

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The grapevine has it that some living varieties of Vitis vinifera were grown by the Romans, and maintained for over two millennia. Ramos-Madrigal et al. used target-enriched genome-wide sequencing for 28 grape seeds recovered from archeological sites dating to the Iron Age, Roman period and Middle Ages. The meta-analysis revealed that these archeological grapes were […]

The tomato pan-genome uncovers new genes and a rare allele regulating fruit flavor (Nature Gen.)

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The wide variety of shape and flavor in modern cultivated tomatoes is a result of introgressions from its wild relatives. While many genetic studies were successful in the identification of wild alleles that affect tomato aroma, no tools were available to study structural variants affecting the taste, missing from the reference line. Gao et al. […]

Accelerated flowering time reduces lifetime water use without penalizing reproductive performance in Arabidopsis (Plant Cell Environ)

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As climate change proceeds, the availability of fresh water is decreasing. Luckily, the variation in water use efficiency within and between species provides tools necessary to breed plants for future climate. However, water use is often studied at the vegetative level. Ferguson et al. observed that whole plant water use and vegetative water use efficiency […]

GRANAR, a new computational tool to better understand the functional importance of root anatomy (bioRxiv)

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Uptake of water by plants depends on root conductivity, which in turn is determined by hydraulic properties of individual cells and cell anatomy. Quantification of radial root anatomy is a time-consuming process, limiting our understanding of root anatomical features contributing to water uptake. Heymans et al. developed a computational tool Generator of Root ANAtomy in […]

Spot the Difference: Distinct Cargo-Specific Functionality of Two Closely Related SNAREs

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Exocytosis is a form of an active transport in which vesicles fuse with the plasma membrane. This vesicle transport secretes soluble cargo proteins and polysaccharides into the apoplast, but also delivers membrane lipids and transmembrane proteins to the plasma membrane. Vesicle trafficking is initiated in the Golgi complex, where the cargoes are sorted and packed […]

Contribution of epigenetic variation to adaptation in Arabidopsis (Nature Comms)

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It is known that changes in the epigenetic state can be inherited, but whether the epigenetic changes are subject to natural selection is uncharted territory. Schmid et al. examined the phenomic and epigenomic changes in Arabidopsis accessions that underwent selection to simulated habitat fragmentation. Five generations of selection resulted in alterations of plants’ phenotype and […]

Review. Review. Functional phenomics: An emerging field integrating high-throughput phenotyping, physiology, and bioinformatics (J. Exp. Bot)

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Understanding the processes contributing to plant productivity will help to secure food production in the future. Larry York proposes how this can be achieved using functional phenomics. First the ideotype needs to be constructed; the ideotype is a set of phene states that are hypothesized to enhance plant performance in a given environment. The ideotype […]