The Casparian strip is a permeability barrier that seals the spaces between root endodermis cells and so prevents bulk-flow uptake of solutes. Previously, a leucine-rich repeat receptor kinase called SCHENGEN3 or GASSHO1 (GSO1/SGN3) was identified as necessary for normal Casparian strip formation. Now, two papers in Science show that the interaction between diffusible peptides and […]
Powdery mildew disease is a broad term that encompasses more than 650 species of powdery mildew fungi that affect about 10,000 plant species, with serious economic consequences. In the 1930s/40s, broad-spectrum resistance to powdery mildew was found in barley with a loss-of-function of the Mildew resistance locus o (Mlo) gene. Subsequently, resistance conferred by induced […]
The interaction between angiosperms and their pollinators provides an excellent system to study co-evolution, and underpins the evolution of the biosynthesis of numerous interesting and useful specialized metabolites, from pigments to fragrances. Borghi et al. review the metabolic pathways that produce these signals and rewards for pollinators. Classes of compounds discussed in terms of synthesis […]
IN BRIEF: Nancy R. Hofmann nhofmann@aspb.org Plant development and responses to the environment hinge on the ability to target proteins to different areas of the plasma membrane within a cell. Indeed, the establishment of polar distributions of proteins such as PIN auxin transporters is among the key responsibilities of the endomembrane trafficking system (reviewed in […]
Magnaporthe oryzae is the fungus that causes rice blast disease, which is a serious threat to food security. Ortiz et al. explore the interaction between AVR-Pia, a fungal effector protein, and RGA5, a rice NLR (nucleotide-binding domain and leucine-rich repeat protein) immune receptor protein. RGA5 has a C-terminal domain, RATX1, that acts as an integrated […]
Several studies have implicated microRNAs in plant defenses against pathogens. Wu et al. previously showed that virus resistance is facilitated by the interaction of viral-inducible AGO18 (which is cleavage-inactive) and rice miR528. In this work, they identified the role of miR528 in viral resistance. Rice susceptibility to rice-stripe virus is positively correlated with miR528 expression […]
Students learn that membrane proteins are inserted into the endoplasmic-reticulum (ER) membrane co-translationally, but this mechanism does not hold for so-called tail-anchored (TA) proteins which carry a single C-terminal membrane spanning domain and insert into the ER membrane post-translationally. The mechanism of TA protein insertion was recently described in yeast as the GET (Guided Entry […]
Nakamura et al. have created a searchable database, CATchUP (http://plantomics.mind.meiji.ac.jp/CATchUP) that allows the user to explore the spatiotemporal expression of genes across eight plant species (monocots and dicots) using data from publically available databases of large-scale RNA-Seq data. The authors define a parameter, Δdmax, which defines the “maximum difference in relative gene expression levels between […]
Efficient photosynthesis demands that plants have the capacity to capture photons when they are scarce, but at the same time not suffer damage from capturing more light energy than they are able to assimilate. To accomplish this, leaves need to be able to differentiate between a steady light level and light fluctuations, for example due […]