Muhammad Aman Mulki, first author of FLOWERING LOCUS T3 (FT3) promotes spikelet formation but not floral development Current Position: Postdoctoral fellow, Plant Breeding and Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, Germany. Education: PhD, Crop Genetics, University of Cologne & Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research. Non-scientific Interests: History, Politics, Documentaries. Brief […]
I guess we’re well past the stage of thinking “one gene – one protein”, but even a single polypeptide isn’t really one protein, due to the huge number of different types of post-translational modification (PTM) it can be subjected to. These are summarized in the illustration that accompanies the editorial by Spoel (10.1093/jxb/ery295) of this […]
Just like the epigenome is the collection of epigenetic marks on DNA, the epitranscriptome is the collection of epigenetic marks on mRNA. Vandivier and Gregory review our current understanding of the epitranscriptome, with a focus on N6-methyladenosine (m6A) and 5-methylcytosine (m5C), and their various writers, readers and erasers. Transcriptome-wide sequencing has revealed that these marks […]
The plant pathogenic bacterium Xylella fastidiosa occurs widely and often asymptomatically, yet it is associated with a few seriously bad disease outbreaks, the most recent affecting olive trees in southern Italy and adjoining regions. It also is the causal agent of Pierce’s Disease of grapevine, citrus variegated chlorosis (CVC) and coffee leaf scorch. Sicard et […]
One of the fundamental challenges facing terrestrial plants occurs when CO2 levels are depleted at Rubisco, causing its inefficient oxygenase activity to dominate. Some plants minimize this problem by adding a carbon-fixing step upstream of Rubisco, and various algae and cyanobacteria sequester Rubisco into compartments such as carboxysomes into which they pump CO2. Engineering plants […]
Plants regularly prioritize either growth or defense, leading to reduced growth rate when the plant is under attack. Wang et al. have identified a simple switch in rice that demonstrates this principle beautifully. The Ideal Plant Architecture 1 (IPA1) transcription factor is involved in controlling grain yield by reducing the number of unproductive tillers. The […]
Many plant hormones have pleiotropic effects, switching on and off multiple, seemingly unrelated processes. As an example, jasmonates both turn on herbivore defense responses and suppress growth. Takaoka et al. have elegantly separated these, by developing a jasmonate mimic that only activates defences. The interaction of this mimic causes the jasmonate co-receptor COI1 to interact […]
It’s often surprising and a bit confusing when a protein that has been implicated in one process reveals itself to be involved in a totally different process as well. BAK1 (also known as SERK3) was first identified as a co-receptor for brassinosteroids (BRs), forming ligand-induced heterodimers with BRI1, a leucine-rich repeat receptor kinases (LRR-RKs). BAK1 […]
Special issue: Orchestrating the proteome with post-translational modifications I guess we’re well past the stage of thinking “one gene – one protein”, but even a single polypeptide isn’t really one protein, due to the huge number of different types of post-translational modification (PTM) it can be subjected to. These are summarized in the illustration that […]