Entries by Mary Williams

Recognizing featured Plant Cell first authors: Ido Nir

Ido Nir is featured first author of The Tomato DELLA Protein PROCERA Acts in Guard Cells to Promote Stomatal Closure Current Position: PhD candidate in Plant Sciences at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel Education: B.Sc. and M.Sc. (direct track to PhD) in Plant Sciences in The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel Non-scientific […]

Recognizing featured Plant Cell first authors: Tengfang Ling

Tengfang Ling is featured author of Host-mediated S-nitrosylation disarms the bacterial effector HopAI1 to re-establish immunity Current Position:  Postdoctoral fellow, Plant Systems Engineering Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience & Biotechnology, Daejeon, South Korea. Education: PhD, Biotechnology, University of Verona, Italy. BS, Biological Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, China Non-scientific Interests:  Photography and sports. I strarted my […]

Recognizing featured Plant Cell first authors: Diana Bellin

Diana Bellin is featured author of Host-mediated S-nitrosylation disarms the bacterial effector HopAI1 to re-establish immunity Current Position:  Postdoctoral fellow, Plant Systems Engineering Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience & Biotechnology, Daejeon, South Korea. Education: PhD, Biotechnology, University of Verona, Italy. BS, Biological Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, China Non-scientific Interests:  Photography and sports. I strarted my […]

Update: The impacts of fluctuating light on crop performance

By Rebecca A Slattery, Berkley J Walker, Andreas P.M. Weber, Donald R. Ort Abstract Rapidly changing light conditions can reduce carbon gain and productivity in field crops because photosynthetic responses to light fluctuations are not instantaneous. Plant responses to fluctuating light occur across levels of organizational complexity from entire canopies to the biochemistry of a […]

Update: Advances in imaging plant cell dynamics

Since the days of Robert Hooke, microscopy has been one of the biologist’s most important tools, and continues to become ever more powerful. Komis et al. review recent advances in superresolution microscopy, particularly as they pertain to the dynamics of plant cells. Dynamic systems demand fast imaging, which can come at the expense of resolution. […]

Perspectives: Plastics from plants, plastic recycling and plastic degradation

“If the current trend continues, there could be more plastic than fish by weight in the oceans by 2050” writes MacArthur in her Editorial, “Beyond plastic waste” (10.1126/science.aao6749). In three Perspective articles, challenges and opportunities to reduce plastic waste and improve its production are discussed. Hillmyer describes progress in developing plant-based plastics in “The promise […]

MAPKs influence pollen-tube growth via phosphorylation of PIP5K6, affecting PtdIns(4,5)P2 formation

Pollen tubes exhibit unidirectional, polar growth because vesicles carrying compounds required for growth  are selectively transported to the growing apex. The phosphoinositide PtdIns(4,5)P2 accumulates at the apex and  is thought to help with vesicle targeting. Helpel et al. showed that the lipid kinase responsible for PtdIns(4,5)P2 production, PIP5K6, is phosphorylated by incubation with extracts from […]

An Arabidopsis glycine-rich plasma membrane protein enhances disease resistance in soybean

Previously, the authors identified an Arabidopsis mutant that shows resistance to a widespread oomycete pathogen. In this new work, Wang et al. identified the Phytophthora sojae susceptible gene locus, PSS1, which encodes a plasma-membrane localized glycine-rich protein. When introduced into soybean plants, PSS1 confers enhanced resistance to the fungal pathogen Fusarium virguliforme, causal agent of […]

ANXUR receptor-like kinases contribute to both PRR- and NLR-mediated immunity ($)

The plant immune system is often described as having two parts, one which recognizes extracellular conserved microbial signals (pattern-triggered immunity: PTI) and one which is stimulated by the presence of specific microbial effectors (effector-triggered immunity: ETI).  Through a forward-genetic screen, Mang et al. identified a pair of receptor-like kinases ANX1 and ANX2 that are negative […]