Lijuan Song, first author of The genomes uncoupled mutants are more sensitive to norflurazon than wild type Current position: PhD student, Key Laboratory of Horticultural Plant Biology, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China Education: BS (2016) from JiangHan University, Wuhan, China Non-Scientific Interests: Eating at hot pot restaurants with my friends; reading whodunit novels […]
Huawen Lin, first author of MAPINS, a highly efficient detection method that identifies insertional mutations and complex DNA rearrangements Current Position: Instructor, Department of Genetics, Washington University in St. Louis, USA Education: PhD in Plant Physiology from Washington University in St. Louis Non-scientific Interests: Baking and travelling with my family Brief bio: I completed my PhD studies with […]
Yuki Yoshida, first author of The Arabidopsis phyB-9 mutant has a second-site mutation in the VENOSA4 gene that alters chloroplast size, photosynthetic traits, and leaf growth Current Position: Postdoctoral researcher in Graduate School of Science at The University of Tokyo. Education: PhD and MS in Graduate School of Science at Kyoto University. BS in Faculty […]
Aigerim Soltabayeva, first author of Early senescence in the older leaves of low nitrate grown Atxdh1 mutant uncovers a role for purine catabolism in N supply Current Position: Postdoctoral Researcher at the Biology Department in the School of Science and Technology at Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan Education: Ph.D. Ben-Gurion University, Israel Non-scientific Interests: Tennis, running, painting […]
How chloroplasts remain viable inside of herbivorous sea slugs is a long-standing curiosity. Unlike corals, which host intact photosynthetic algae, sea slugs retain naked chloroplasts (which are then called kleptoplasts – stolen plastids), some of which remain viable for seveal weeks. Christa et al. explored how kleptoplasts from diverse algal species survive without the support […]
Martinez et al. used a modelling approach to see if it is possible to predict the location of a cell’s future division plane. In most cases the cell divides according to strict geometric rules, such that the newly formed wall will have a minimum area (described as a soap-film minimization model). However, in some cases […]
Ploidy refers to the number of genomes contained within a nucleus. Ploidy levels can increase through whole-genome duplication, which affects every cell equally, and through endoreduplication, a cell-by-cell process in which DNA synthesis is not accompanied by cytokinesis. Robinson et al. investigated how increasing ploidy (both types) affects nuclear, cell and organ size. They found […]
By now we’re probably all familiar with the central dogma of auxin signalling; that the interaction between auxin and auxin receptors (e.g., TIR1) leads to degradation of Aux/IAA proteins, freeing up ARF transcription factors to do their things. The complexity of this simple system arises in part due to the large numbers of all of […]
Much has been discussed about the impacts of abiotic effects (e.g., heat and drought stress) on crop yields arising from climate change. Here, Deutsch and Tewksbury et al. evaluate how a changing climate will affect crop (wheat, rice and maize) yields through increases in insect herbivory. Temperature affects herbivorous insects in two ways. First, with […]