PLOS Comp. Biol. Plant biologists need basic programming skills (see Friesner et al. for a discussion of why this is true and how to achieve it). As part of the “Ten Simple Rules” series in PLOS Computational Biology, Carey and Papin describe Ten simple rules for biologists learning to program. This article seeks to encourage […]
Plant Physiol. Herbicide resistance is a serious problem in contemporary agriculture. One of the most widely used herbicides, glyphosate, interferes with the activity of EPSPS (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase). Koo et al. previously showed that glyphosate-resistant waterhemp (Amaranthus tuberculatus, a common weed in agricultural fields) has an increased copy number of the EPSPS gene and an extra […]
Plant Direct. DNA repair occurs by several independent mechanisms, one of which is the mismatch repair (MMR) pathway. In prokayotes, MutS is a component of the mismatch repair pathway; homologous proteins in eukaryotes are known as MSH (MutS homologs). Sarma et al. set out to develop a hypermutable tomato strain (for genetic screening) by silencing […]
Metabolites. Terpenes are derived from isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) and dimethylallyl diphosphate (DMAPP), which are produced in two separate pathways: in the cytosol (via mevalonate, MVA) and the plastid (via methyl-D-erythritol-4-phosphate, MEP). The products of terpene metabolism include numerous valuable compounds including many with medicinal properties, and are being explored as target for enhancement through metabolic […]
PLOS One. Katharine Hubbard (@KEHplantsci) and Sonja Dunbar (@PlantSciSonja) are enthusiastic proponents of student-centered teaching, including guiding undergraduate students through the reading of scientific papers. In this new work they’ve evaluated how undergraduate students compare to graduate students, postdocs and PIs in their approach to and appreciation of scientific papers. Their key conclusions: “We propose […]
Focus Issue: Cellular Dynamics Plant Physiology has released a focus issue on the topic of Cellular Dynamics, which includes Updates on topics ranging from Actin Dynamics to Wall Growth. The Editorial by Szymanski, Bassham, Munnik, and Sakamoto provides an excellent overview of the current state of our understanding of plant cell dynamics. As they observe, […]
During the final week of 2017 we reminded you of some of the big stories and successes that came from our community. These stories were highly accessed through the ASPB and Plantae.org blogs, our many social media sites, and our journal websites. Originally publised as a set of six posts, we’ve assembled the full year’s […]
One of the hardest parts of any sequencing project is putting the pieces together. Physical sequence alignments can be cross checked against genetic linkage maps when they are available, but what about for species without genetic linkage data? Udall and Dawe describe the use of optical mapping, using Bionano Genomics or Nabsys technologies, as an […]
The last week of the year is the time to look back and reflect. We like to take this opportunity to recognize the good work done by the plant science community. During this final week of 2017 we’ve been reminding you of some of the big stories and successes that came from our community. These […]