When a pathogen is perceived, plants have the ability to induce stomatal closure to prohibit the pathogens from passing into the inner tissues; this response is known as stomatal immunity. Two new papers in The Plant Cell investigate mechanisms by which pathogen perception is transduced into stomatal closure. Su et al. 10.1105/tpc.16.00577 show that MPK3 […]
To safeguard human health and the environment, the French government has called for a nation-wide reduction in the use of pesticides (herbicides, fungicides and insecticides). Towards this end, they have been collecting pesticide usage and yield data from French farmers. Lechenet et al. explored these data to identify potential impacts of decreasing pesticide use. Their […]
Review: The increasing impact of activity-based protein profiling in plant science Activity-based protein profiling is a proteomics approach that involves covalently labeling reporter tags to subsets of proteins based on their active sites. Morimoto and van der Hoorn define different types of probes and the types of proteins that they bind to. Activity profiling can […]
The SPINDLY (SPY) gene was identified through a genetic screen; spy mutants are abnormally tall and thin, suggesting that they are overly sensitive to gibberellins. Later, the SPY gene was shown to act downstream of GIBBEERLLIN INSENSITIVE (GAI), which is a DELLA-domain containing protein. SPY was previously identified as showing homology to O-GlcNac transferases, but […]
ARGONAUTE10 (AGO10) was first identified through genetic studies in the 90s; loss-of-function mutants (zwille, pinhead) show premature differentiation of the shoot apical meristem. Although the mechanism has remained uncertain, AGO10 has been shown to suppress accumulation of miR165/6, which are key regulators of a large number of developmentally important transcription factors. Yu, Ji, and Le […]
Large-scale phenotyping efforts depend on large numbers of measurements, so the time taken for any one measurement has a big effect on the number of samples that can be processed. Stinziano et al. describe a breakthrough in the method used to identify the photosynthetic parameters Vc,max (maximum rate of Rubisco carboxylation) and Jmax (maximum rate […]
When is a genome-edited plant a GMO (and subject to GMO-restrictions)? Wolter and Puchta summarize two important papers that show that CRISPR/Cas genome editing can be achieved in wheat and rice without the introduction of foreign DNA (making these plants “not GMO”), by delivering complexes of enzyme and guide RNA. The authors conclude: “We will […]
Evolution starts with molecular variation and phenotypic diversity, upon which selection acts. Flood and Hancock review the approaches used to detect adaptive evolution. The top down approach starts with the phenotype and works to identify its genomic basis; examples are quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping or genome-wide association screening (GWAS). The bottom up approach starts […]
The idea that the microbes on and within an organism (the microbiota) influence an organism in positive, neutral and negative ways has been a hot topic in popular science, especially the role of the gut microbiota in human health and nutrition. Plants are similarly influenced by their microbiota, as reviewed by Kroll et al. Although […]