By Matthew J. Paul, Asier Gonzalez-Uriarte, Cara A. Griffiths, and Keywan Hassani-Pak Significant increases in global food security require improving crop yields in favourable and poor conditions alike. However, it is challenging to increase both the crop yield potential and yield resilience simultaneously, since the mechanisms that determine productivity and stress tolerance are typically inversely […]
Nobody doubts the great insights we have gained about plant diversity and evolution from genome sequencing, but the patchy nature of available genomes within the plant phylogeny remains a problem. Cheng et al. describe the 10KP (10,000 Plants) Genome Sequencing Project, which aims to sequence genomes from every major clade of plants (and protists) within […]
The carbon-fixing enzyme Rubisco (Ribulose‐1,5‐bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase) is much-maligned and has been described as “sluggish” and with “confused specificity”. In this new Review, Bathellier et al. argue that it is “not really so bad”. Their reasoning is that when Rubisco’s catalytic properties are compared to enzymes with related catalytic activities and in relevant physiological conditions, it […]
Following up on earlier studies in which they introduced cyanobacterial Rubisco into tobacco, Lin and Hanson endeavoured to introduce into tobacco Rubisco genes from a red alga, which has an unusually high CO2/O2 specificity. Although they were able to demonstrate the presence of the genes and their transcription, the enzyme failed to accumulate, suggesting a […]
Polyamines, which include putrescine [NH2(CH2)4NH2], spermidine [NH2(CH2)4NH(CH2)3NH2], and spermine [NH2(CH2)3NH(CH2)4NH(CH2)3NH2], are widespread in nature. Although their mechanisms of action remain largely unresolved, they have demonstrated roles in plants ranging from abiotic stress tolerance to fruit ripening. Guo, Wang et al. examined the contributions of polyamines to strawberry fruit ripening. They showed that spermidine levels increase […]
Viruses are significant pathogens of plants, and we know that plants defend themselves in part through the production of small RNAs (sRNAs) that suppress the virus. The viral pathogens in turn can produce viral supressors of RNA silencing (VSR). Kørner et al. investigated the role of gene silencing (post-trancriptional PTGS and transcriptional TGS) in the […]
Salinity is a widespread stressor. Zhou et al. investigated the role of receptor-like kinases (RLKs) in salinity tolerance by identifying RLKs that are transcriptionally upregulated by salt treatment. Candidates were introduced either as overexpression (full-length) or dominant negative (partial) clones, leading to the identification of STRK1 (salt tolerance receptor-like cytoplasmic kinase 1) as a conferring […]
Many studies have examined how plants respond transcriptionally to pathogen attack. This study investigates how a bacterial pathogen [Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (Pto)] alters its transcriptome very early in the infection process. To accomplish this, Nobori et al. developed two methods to enrich for rare bacterial transcripts against a much larger number of plant […]
Phosphorus deficiency is widespread and can severely limit plant growth. Carstensen et al. investigated how P deficiency affects photosynthesis in barley. They compared chlorophyll a fluorescence transients (OJIP transients) between P-deficient, sufficient and resupplied plants. They observed depletion in the I-step associated with P deficiency, which is consistent with an inhibition of electron transport to […]