The Journal of Experimental Botany is publishing a good collection of review articles on auxin. Topics include ARF transcription factors, Auxin’s role in lateral root formation, Auxin research in rice and implications for crop improvement, Integration of multiple auxin signaling pathways, Evolution of auxin signaling, Auxin homeostasis, and Auxin, microtubules, and vesicle trafficking. As you know, […]
New reviews cover the hot topic of membrane and vesicle trafficking in plant immunity. Gu et al. (Mol. Plant 10.1016/j.molp.2017.07.001) provide an overview of the two membrane trafficking pathways: the secretory pathway involved in movement of antimicrobials, defense proteins and cell wall components outwards, and the endocytic pathway involved in movement of immune receptors inward […]
In 2016, Rangan et al. reported on “New evidence for grain specific C4 photosynthesis in wheat,” but later that year Busch and Farquhar responded with “Poor evidence for C4 photosynthesis in the wheat grain.” Now these two groups continue their arguments for and against wheat seed C4 photosynthesis, in a quartet of Letters to the […]
Protein-protein interactions are crucial to our understanding of biology but can be hard to detect. Trigg et al. developed a sophisticated yeast two-hybrid assay augmented with Cre recombinase (CrY2H-seq) to identify the Arabidopsis transcription factor protein-protein interactome. In this method, plasmid libraries carrying transcription factor open-reading frames (ORFs) fused to GAL4 activation domains or DNA-binding […]
Plants, green algae and cyanobacteria carry out oxygenic photosynthesis through the coordination of two photosystems, PSI and PSII. Many other photosynthetic prokaryotes use a single reaction center to carry out anoxygenic photosynthesis. Gisriel et al. describe the structure of a photosynthetic reaction center from Heliobactrium modesticaldum, “a thermophilic anaerobe isolated from volcanic soil in Iceland.” […]
Long et al. examined transcription factor complex formation in vivo in Arabidopsis roots using a technique that combines FRET (Förster Resonance Energy Transfer) and FLIM (Fluorescence Lifetime imaging Microscopy). Using this method, the authors were able to observe cell-type specific complex formation between transcription factors known to specify root development, specifically, SHORT-ROOT (SHR), SCARECROW (SCR). […]
Pigment engineering was featured in three recent papers. Anthocyanins are blue pigments valued for their antioxidant health benefits and for their beauty, but their biosynthesis and chemistry is complex. Noda et al. introduced two genes to produce blue anthocyanins in chrysanthemum petals (Sci Advances 10.1126/sciadv,1602785). They found that the blue pigment formed as a copigment […]
Saffer et al. identified an Arabidpsis mutant with swirled petals and with petal epidermal cells that show a left-handed (but never right-handed) twist. They mapped the mutation to the RHAMNOSE BIOSYNTHESIS1 (RHM1) gene, which is most highly expressed in petal epidermal cells and encodes an enzyme that catalyzes the biosynthesis of UDP-L-rhamnose, a component of […]
It’s easy to demonstrate that plants sense gravity, and we also know that statocytes are involved in the perception of gravity. Statocytes are gravity-sensing cells that contain dense starch-containing amyloplasts that move within the cell in the direction of gravity. Differential growth to accommodate a change in gravity orientation involves auxin transport, but the steps […]