Entries by Mary Williams

What We’re Reading: December 1st

Review.  Genomic selection in plant breeding: Methods, models, and perspectives In future years, climate change may cause significant economic losses to countries worldwide. Consequently, genetic improvement of crops fit for drought-stressed and semi-arid regions is becoming a must. In this review, Crossa et al. assess the advances in genetic selection (GS) and genomic-enabled prediction (GP) […]

Update: Advances in imaging plant cell dynamics

By Jozef Samaj, George Komis, Dominik Novak, Miroslav Ovecka, Olga Samajova Abstract After the establishment of advanced fluorescence microscopy methods and the development of numerous fluorescent proteins it is possible to follow the organization and dynamics of most organelles and subcellular compartments in cells of living plants. Nowadays, it is possible to address subcellular architecture […]

Boundary formation through direct threshold-based readout of mobile small RNA gradients

How does a flat leaf form? Previous studies have indicated that the formation of a flattened blade depends upon a boundary layer between the upper and lower cell layers, and that mobile small RNAs contribute to this boundary, but how this occurs is not fully resolved. For example, although the small RNA tasiRNA is present […]

What we’re reading: November 24th

A special “thank you” too the many people who have contributed to What We’re Reading over the past year! And don’t forget you can sign up to receive email alerts – click here then “Notify me of new content”. Review: Plant systems biology at the single-cell level The establishment and enormous developments in -omics and […]

Thank you

This past year at ASPB we’ve been thinking a lot about how we can support early-career researchers no matter their career goals. One of the motivations for developing the Plantae platform has been to provide an online home for plant scientists across the globe and career spectrum, to allow informal communities and learning groups to […]

Update: Oxygen sensing and integrative stress signaling in plants

By Romy Schmidt, Daan A Weits, Claudio FJ Feulner, Joost T. van Dongen Plants grow in a dynamic environment and continuously face numerous stress conditions in parallel. This fluctuating environment pushed the evolution of extensive metabolic flexibility (Sweetlove et al., 2010; van Dongen et al., 2011). Flooding is an example of an environmental condition that […]

Update: Cytoplasmic mRNA dynamics

By Thanin Chantarachot and Julia Bailey-Serres The export of an mRNA from the nucleus to the cytoplasm begins an odyssey of dynamic regulation that determines the location, longevity and use of the transcript in the production of polypeptides by ribosomes in plant cells. Recent leveraging of mutants, imaging of fluorescent proteins and ‘omics’ of protein […]

Update on Myosin Motors: Molecular Mechanisms and Physiological Functions

By Jennifer M Ryan and Andreas Nebenfuehr The cytoskeleton is the main organizing principle that defines not only the distribution of cellular components within cells but also the overall shape and growth pattern of cells and entire multicellular organisms. This function is particularly evident in plant cells where, for example, the organization of cortical microtubules […]