In a screen for chemicals that regulate strigolactone (SL) levels in rice, Ito et al. found that gibberellins suppress SL biosynthesis. This effect depends on the gibberellin signaling module, and involve a decrease in expression level of SL-biosynthetic genes. Furthermore, GA treated rice exuded less SL into the soil, and Striga seed germination frequency was […]
Strigolactones are both hormones that control shoot architecture and signals that promote interactions with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and promote germination of detrimental parasitic weeds such as Striga asiatica and Striga hermonthica. Gobena et al. mapped and cloned a sorghum gene, LOW GERMINATION STIMULANT 1 (LGS1), previously identified as conferring less stimulation of germination in Striga. […]
Phosphate is a limiting nutrient in soil and not very mobile, so roots respond strongly to low Pi soils by the cessation of elongation of the primary root with accompanying stimulation of lateral root and root hair production. Previously, the accumulation of iron (Fe3+) in the apoplast of root meristem cells with accompanying callose deposition […]
Sugar is a signal as well as an energy source, and plants monitor sugar levels to maintain an appropriate growth rate and rate of photosynthesis. A new study by Kelly et al. points to a role for sugars in the expression and activity of plasma-membrane (PIP) aquaporins. Aquaporins (AQP) are membrane channels for water and […]
Border cells form at the root tip and are shed during growth, protecting the sensitive root apex from damage as it pushes through the soil. Mravec et al. investigated the cell wall chemistry, carbohydrate distributioion and expression of cell-wall modifying genes to determine the mechanism by which border cells separate from their neighboring cells. Their […]
Review: Rubisco activases: AAA+ chaperones adapted to enzyme repair Rubisco, the fundamental enzyme required for photosynthetic carbon fixation, is susceptible to inactivation by the inhibitory binding of various metabolites. Rubisco activases (Rca’s) are enzymes that remodel Rubisco and facilitate the elimination of the inhibitor. All photosynthetic organisms have Rubisco activases that share a AAA+ domain. […]
Every student of plant cell biology learns that the future plane of cell division is marked very early in mitosis by the preprophase band (PPB), a band of microtubules that forms around the periphery of the cell. Prior experimental studies have suggested that the PPB is necessary for proper placement of the mitotic spindle and […]
Proteins carry sequence tags that are read by cellular machineries that deliver the proteins to their proper destinations, which include the nucleus, mitochondria and plastid. Many pathogen effector proteins have acquired such targeting tags too, but for these can sometimes be cryptic to bioinformatics tools trained on native plant proteins. Sperschneider et al. have developed […]
The path from genome to phenome is difficult to predict. Cañas et al. tried to identify biochemical markers that are correlated with kernel yield that could be selected for in breeding. Specifically, they collected data from metabolomics, enzyme activity assays and metabolic modeling, taken during the vegetative phase and the grain filling state 15 days […]