Plantae Presents: Sophia Stone and Sjon Hartman Recorded April 14 Sophia Stone: The ubiquitin-proteasome system at the crossroads of abiotic and biotic stress tolerance Sophia Stone earned her PhD at York University, Canada, and completed an HFSP long-term fellowship at the University of California-Davis, USA. She currently holds the George S. Campbell Chair in […]
Plantae Presents: Ksenia Krasileva, Christine Diepenbrock, and Rory Craig Special Event: The Plant Cell Focus Issue on the Biology of Plant Genomes Recorded Wed April 7th – 4 pm EDT, 1 pm PDT 9 pm BST, Thurs April 8th 8 am NZT Advances in genome sequencing have yielded insights into aspects of plant biology; elucidating […]
A conversation with Beronda Montgomery Recorded April 6, 2021 Beronda Montgomery is a Foundation Professor at Michigan State University in the departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Microbiology & Molecular Genetics. The Montgomery Lab pursues a common research theme of understanding how individuals perceive, respond to, and are impacted by the environments in which […]
We marvel at the ability of starfish to regenerate an arm, or a lizard a new tail, but even more impressive than these feats is the ability of a plant root system to create lateral roots when and where they are needed. This root system plasticity has been long studied, with a wealth of insights […]
The sweetpotato whitefly, Bemisia tabaci, are devastating crop pests that lower yields and transmit viruses. They feed off more than 600 species, most of which produce toxic phenolic glycosides. Xia et al. investigated how the whiteflies manage to avoid the effects of the toxin. They found convincing evidence that this group of insects, but not […]
Update: Lateral root formation and nutrients: nitrogen in the spotlight We marvel at the ability of starfish to regenerate an arm, or a lizard a new tail, but even more impressive than these feats is the ability of a plant root system to create lateral roots when and where they are needed. This root system […]
Roots and shoots exist in different environments and have different functions, but each depends on the actions of the other. In recent years, many factors have been identified that move from root to shoot or vice versa to integrate their actions; these include hormones, small RNAs, peptides, and transcription factors. This fascinating review article takes […]
The effects of light on plant growth are incredibly complex and depend on where it is perceived, light quantity, light quality (wavelength), and when within the circadian cycle it is perceived. Romanowski et al. examined the effect of late-day far-red light perception in Arabidopsis leaves. This treatment is known to induce shade-avoidance syndrome, which is […]
Genetic studies have provided us with countless examples of regulatory switches that transduce a signal into a response. Mutant analysis is usually sufficient to identify these controlling elements, but often in an all-or-nothing way. Here, Ghusinga et al. have taken a theoretical kinetic approach to examine how three types of switch architectures affect the properties […]