As the hottest year on record, 2023 has truly been a global annus horribilis during which humans, other animals, and domesticated and wild plants have faced unprecedented environmental challenges. In the past month alone, torrential rainfalls have wreaked havoc in Asia, the Middle East, and many parts of Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Frightenedly, disruptive […]
The September issue of Plant Physiology has a focus on plant cell polarity, which plays a pivotal role in the fundamental processes that dictate plant growth, development, and adaptation. By establishing distinct regions within cells, plant cell polarity is crucial for regulating asymmetric cell divisions, guiding the direction of cell expansion, and determining the spatial […]
The September issue of The Plant Cell includes a focus on biomolecular condensates. Although the term “biomolecular condensates” is relatively new, it actually reflects a convergence and synthesis of several distinct threads of research. Biomolecular condensates span from “classic” membraneless organelles (e.g., nucleolus, pyrenoid) to small, transient functional condensates, some of which are only recently […]
It’s well established that damaged plant tissues emit volatile compounds that bolster defense responses in nearby plants, but how those neighbors sense these compounds has remained obscure. This new work by Wang et al. reveals some important clues. First, as the title indicates, immature leaves are much more responsive to damage-associated volatiles (the authors specifically […]
The shoot apical meristem (SAM) is a wonderous thing. How this tiny clump of cells generates the entire above-ground organ system regularly, predictably, and dynamically is a question that has been investigated for decades, with models incorporating cascades regulatory genes, diffusible peptides, hormone fluxes, cell wall properties, cytoskeletal patterns, and more. In this new preprint […]
Marchantia polymorpha, the common (but adorable) liverwort, has earned its spot in the ranks of very important plant model systems, joining Physcomitrium patens as representatives of the bryophyte clade. Many systems first characterized in Arabidopsis and other angiosperms are now being studied in these plants, providing much-needed insights into their evolutionary origins and trajectories. Here, […]
Review: Red macroalgae in the genomic era I highly recommend this excellent and accessible article by Borg et al. that provides an overview of the red macroalgae, which “may have been the first eukaryotic lineage to have evolved complex multicellularity”. It’s full of fascinating information: although 97% of red algal species are marine, one lives […]
If you weren’t around in the ’80s, you missed some great times; the music, the fashion, the flower genetics! This historical perspective article by David Smythe nicely sums up those heady days with an account of how Arabidopsis thaliana blasted into the ranks of a top model organism, in part through the uncovering of genes […]
The PIN-FORMED family of auxin transporters were first identified through genetic screens of Arabidopsis thaliana in the 1980s. Recessive pin mutants form a flowerless, pin-like inflorescence. Subsequent work showed that the encoded genes are membrane-localized auxin transporters and contribute to the export of auxin from the cell. In this review, Ung et al. build on […]