Entries by Mary Williams

Updates on Resources, Software Tools, and Databases for Plant Proteomics in 2016–2017 ($) (Electrophoresis)

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Proteomics, like metabolomics research, depends on the mass-spectrometry tools.  Data processing, protein annotation, statistical and data analysis, as well as visualization are often the hurdles in obtaining meaningful biological insights from high throughput datasets. To this end, the author has summarized all open source community resources, software tools, and databases that surfaced in 2016-2017 and […]

What We’re Reading: March 2nd

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This week’s edition is guest edited by Arif Ashraf (@aribidopsis), a graduate student of United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Iwate University, Japan and Graduate student ambassador of American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB). His research interest is understanding the hormonal interplay in primary root development of Arabidopsis thaliana. He blogs about plant science at www.aribidopsis.com. Review: The pivotal […]

Articles and projects by ASPB Conviron Scholars

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The inaugural class of ASPB Conviron Scholars are wrapping up their virtual course, which included discussions and exercises on various aspects of professional development, from communication to leadership. As part of the course, they were asked to write a blog post and do some sort of independent project to illustrate or explain a facet of plant science to the […]

What We’re Reading: February 23rd

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Guest Editor: Dr. Isabel Mendoza Isabel is a plant biologist from Spain that got her PhD on (Plant) Biotechnology in 2013 with a study about secondary metabolism in spike lavender.  Since then she has changed her career path a bit into R&D and innovation management and science communication. However, plant science is still her “secret […]

Review. Use it or average it: Stochasticity in plant development (Curr. Opin. Plant Biol.)

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In this interesting review, Roeder describes the importance of stochasticity in plant development. She starts off with an explanation: “A process that can be analyzed statistically but not predicted precisely is stochastic. Stochasticity does not imply the absence of regulation, just that the regulation does not cause an exactly determined output in all cases.” She […]

Review. Rhizobia: From saprophytes to endosymbionts (Nat. Rev. Microbiol.) ($)

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One of the best characterized plant-bacteria interactions is that between legumes and rhizobia. This review by Poole et al. explores rhizobia in their non-plant associated state (as saprophytes that derive energy and nutrients from organic matter in the soil), through the complex signals that lead to their attraction and attachment to the root, and finally […]

A virus-targeted plant receptor-like kinase promotes cell-to-cell spread of RNAi (PNAS) ($)

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Viruses can move from cell to cell through plasmodesmata. Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are key components in the plant’s arsenal against viruses. They function by harnessing the AGO system to target and cleave viral RNA, thus silencing the viruses. Like the viruses they target, siRNAs move from cell to cell through plasmodesmata. Previous work showed […]

What We’re Reading: February 9th

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Review. Use it or average it: Stochasticity in plant development (Curr. Opin. Plant Biol.) In this interesting review, Roeder describes the importance of stochasticity in plant development. She starts off with an explanation: “A process that can be analyzed statistically but not predicted precisely is stochastic. Stochasticity does not imply the absence of regulation, just […]

Nature news feature: The lost art of looking at plants

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Nature.  With the advent of advanced molecular techniques and tools, the detailed scrutiny of a plant’s physical attributes fell to the wayside. Focus has shifted from physiological characterization of a board range of species to detailed genomic work being done on a few select model organisms and, consequently, botany departments were forgotten and dismantled. Then […]