Increasing photosynthetic conversion efficiency is an attractive target for improving crop yields. One way of affecting this is to alter the way CO2 is delivered to Rubisco, the carbon-fixing enzyme of photosynthesis. Lehmeier et al. aimed to change the pattern of air spaces within Arabidopsis leaves by modulating the expression of the cell cycle genes […]
During photosynthesis Rubisco fixes CO2 by carboxylating its substrate RuBP, leading to the de novo production of carbohydrates. Photorespiration has long been considered a wasteful process, initiated by Rubisco-mediated oxygenation of RuBP and resulting in the loss of carbon, nitrogen and energy. Busch et al. demonstrate that photosynthetic carbon metabolism and nitrogen assimilation are intimately […]
The ability to generate transgenic plants has revolutionised plant science research. However, many species and genotypes remain challenging and time-consuming to transform. Zhao et al. provide a novel and potentially ground-breaking method of transgene delivery. In the presence of a magnetic field, iron oxide nanoparticles coated with plasmid DNA entered pollen grains through apertures in […]
Assessing the function of genes active in zygotes and egg cells is difficult due to the inaccessibility of the target tissues. Koiso et al. isolated rice egg cells and maize zygotes using a method similar to that for extracting leaf protoplasts. They then optimized a PEG-Ca2+ transfection protocol to introduce plasmid DNA for transient expression […]
CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing has rapidly become a powerful tool in modern plant science research. However, issues of low editing efficiencies and off-target mutations remain. LeBlanc et al. hypothesised that subjecting plants to high temperature stress, mimicking the optimal operating temperature of Streptococcus pyogenes Cas9, would increase editing efficiency. When Arabidopsis plants expressing a GFP reporter, […]
Persistent drought monitoring using a microfluidic-printed electro-mechanical sensor of stomata in planta The study of stomatal dynamics is crucial for understanding photosynthetic gas exchange and plant hydraulics, but there are currently no methods for measuring the conductance of individual stomata in real-time and in planta. As such, Koman et al. developed a system where a […]
The trade-off between grain size and number has been traditionally hard to break. Bai et al established that differences in panicle architecture between two rice cultivars resulted from duplication of a long-distance silencer of the FRIZZY PANICLE (FZP) gene in one cultivar (Chuan 7). Increased silencing of FZP led to a longer panicle branching period […]
The effect of reducing leaf chlorophyll content on canopy CO2 assimilation (Acan) is somewhat contentious. Walker et al. obtained data from 67 soybean accessions to parameterise a canopy-root-soil model (MLCan) in order to simulate the effect of altering chlorophyll levels on Acan. There was no increase in Acan when chlorophyll content was reduced – while […]
The ability to engineer precise changes in nucleic acid sequences has advanced rapidly over the last few years. Since the development of genome editing technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9, a modified version known as base editing has sought to reliably convert individual nucleotides. All known base editing techniques harness cytidine deaminases fused to a catalytically inactive […]