The root apex is an excellent tissue in which to study the mechanisms that control cell division and differentiation, as the cells produced by the root apical meristem form files of increasing age as they are moved away from the tip. In Arabidopsis, many mutant and reporter lines have contributed to a model in which […]
Jasmonic acid (JA) and its derivatives including methyl jasmonate (MeJA) mediate diverse responses to wounding and herbivory and also help to control the growth-defense trade off. JA’s core signaling components have mainly been identified through genetics approaches in Arabidopsis, but gaps remain between JA synthesis / receptor interactions and downstream responses. Hickman and Van Verk […]
There’s only one thing worse than having a parasite suck the life juices out of you, and that’s having a parasite suck the life juices out of you while simultaneously injecting you with miRNAs to increase your vulnerability. Shahid et al. looked at microRNAs isolated from dodder (Cuscuta campestris), which parasistizes a wide range of […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Looking back on his 40-year career gives author Stephen Campana the opportunity to distill very useful career advice. Very briefly, here are his 12 steps, but we recommend you real all of this interesting and useful article, found here, from the ICES Journal of Marine Science. Read, read, read To be applied, or not to […]
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 […]
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 […]