Entries by Mary Williams

Detection of nucleic acid–protein interactions in leaves using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy ($)

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FRET-FLIM (Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer – Fluorescent Lifetime Imaging Microscopy) is a method that allows detection of interactions between two fluorescently-tagged molecules. Camborde and Jauneau et al. describe the use of FRET-FLIM to identify interactions in leaves between GFP-tagged DNA-binding proteins and nucleic acids (DNA or RNA), labeled with Sytox Orange. When the two molecules […]

What We’re Reading: September 8th

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Review: Promiscuity, impersonation and accommodation: Evolution of plant specialized metabolism ($) The huge set of chemical pathways beyond the conserved primary metabolic network is described as specialized metabolism (formerly known as secondary metabolism). The diversity of specialized metabolites is due to recent evolutionary innovations in enzyme function, as reviewed by Leong and Last. Key processes […]

Review: Plant signaling and metabolic pathways enabling arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis ($)

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The relationship between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi has persisted for 400 million years, but we are still learning about the biochemistry of this interaction. MacLean, Bravo and Harrison review how plants attract, recognize, and accommodate their fungal partners, from pre-contact through nutrient exchange. Recent insights including the role of the NOPE1 N-acetylglucosamine transporter in […]

SPF45-related splicing factor for phytochrome signaling promotes photomorphogenesis by regulating pre-mRNA splicing in Arabidopsis ($)

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Light is one of the environmental conditions which regulates plants’ development, but knowledge of how light-induced transcript accumulation occurs via transcriptional versus post-transcriptional mechanisms is limited. Xin et al. report Splicing Factor for Phytochrome Signaling (SFPS) as an interacting partner of the photoreceptor Phytochrome B. The sfps mutant has a hyposensitive response to light and […]

ePlant: Visualizing and exploring multiple levels of data for hypothesis generation ($)

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The application of systems biology is quite phenomenal these days for prediction-based modeling and interactive data visualization. Along with the genome sequencing of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, there has been a parallel increase in systems biology tools. Unfortunately, these tools have been developed by different groups or institutions for various purposes, whereas a unifying […]

Establishment of photosynthesis is controlled by two distinct regulatory phases ($)

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Chloroplast biogenesis and leaf development are closely linked processes that have been difficult to tease apart, until recently. Dubreuil et al. used a pluripotent inducible cell line from Arabidopsis, basically plant stem cells, which develop chloroplasts on demand when exposed to light. Using this system as well as developing maize leaves, the researchers proposed a […]

The evolution of CHROMOMETHYLASES and gene body DNA methylation in plants

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In land plant genomes, transposable elements (TEs) are ubiquitously methylated in CG and non-CG sequence contexts. Apart from methylation of TEs, DNA methylation also occurs on bodies of actively transcribed genes, typically in the CG context, with very low or no non-CG methylation, and is referred to as gene body methylation (gbM). To begin to […]

Brassinosteroid signaling-dependent root responses to prolonged elevated ambient temperature

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Temperature is one of the major factors affecting plant growth and development. Martins et al. showed that elevated temperature increases root growth through elongated cell size, but reduced both meristem size and number of meristematic cells. The elongation of root growth during elevated temperature is independent of auxin and confirmed through the study of auxin […]