Entries by Mary Williams

Missing enzymes in the biosynthesis of the anticancer drug vinblastine in Madagascar periwinkle ($) (Science)

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Plants make some amazing biologically active natural products, many with impressive applications such as vinblastine, a product of Catharantus roseus (Madagascar periwinkle). Caputi et al. identified key enzymes in vinblastine synthesis, opening the door for its production in alternative systems and the production of derivative compounds. It’s an interesting story of false-starts, unstable intermediates and […]

What We’re Reading: May 18th

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Review: Same tune, different song — cytokinins as virulence factors in plant–pathogen interactions? Many pathogens produce virulence factors that improve their pathogenicity, including in some cases compounds produced by the host, such as the hormone cytokinin. Spallek et al. review the various plant pathogens — spanning from bacteria to parasitic plants — that use cytokinins […]

Review: Auxin: a molecular trigger of seed development (Genes Devel.) ($)

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Seeds are hugely important, providing the opportunity for reproductive dormancy in seed-bearing plants and as a nutrient-dense food source for animals. Seed development involves the formation of three genetically distinct tissues, the embryo, seed coat and endosperm. Although normally dependent on fertilization by pollen, through the process of apomixis sometimes seeds can form in the […]

Review: The road to auxin-dependent growth repression and promotion in apical hooks (Curr. Biol.)

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We often hear that auxin controls plant growth. In a special issue of Current Biology focused on membranes, Béziat and Kleine-Vehn observe that due to its role in controlling the distribution of auxin transporters (and therefore auxin), it is also reasonable to say that vesicle trafficking controls plant growth. The authors demonstrate the significance of […]

Variable effects of C-terminal fusions on FLS2 function – not all epitope tags are created equal (Plant Physiol.)

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A protein’s function and localization are often studied by fusing to it a small “tag” to enhance visualization (through the tag’s fluorescence or antibodies that recognize the tag). These tags are often assumed to have little effect on the protein of interest, but as Hurst et al. show using several different tags fused to the […]

Genomic variation in 3,010 diverse accessions of Asian cultivated rice (Nature)

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Wang et al. analyse data from the 3000 rice (Oryza sativa) genome (3K-RG) project, identifying “29 million single nucleotide polymorphisms, 2.4 million small indels and over 90,000 structural variations”. The data of course strongly support the two major rice types (Indica and Japonica), but also reveal a total of nine subpopulations. The authors use these […]

What We’re Reading: May 4th

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Review: A newly proposed plastid: the xyloplast ($) In its simplest definition, a plastid is an organelle that manufactures and stores essential chemical compounds used by its host cell. Numerous plastids exist beyond the familiar chloroplast. Chromoplasts synthesise and store carotenoid pigments, and provide their hosts with district yellow, orange or red colouring, while amyloplasts […]