Entries by Mary Williams

Rice nitrogen nutrition is improved by association with a fungus carrying nitrogen-fixing endobacteria ($) (Plant Cell)

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Previously, growth-promoting endophytic (living within the plant) microbes were isolated from plants (narrowleaf cattail, Typha angustifolia) growing in a nutrient-poor site in an effort to identify new beneficial microbes. One of these identified is the fungus Rhodotorula mucilaginosa. Now, Paul et al. have further characterized this fungus to identify how it benefits its host. They […]

Antimicrobial solid media for screening non-sterile Arabidopsis thaliana seeds (bioRxiv)

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Transgenic plant production often involves an agar-based selection step in which plants that have taken up the introduced DNA (containing a selectable marker) show resistance to a corresponding antibiotic. Typically, putatively transformed seeds are surface sterilized prior to plating so that microbes don’t outgrow the much slower-growing plants. This step is time consuming and can […]

Plant Science Research Weekly: December 6

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Review. Dare to change, the dynamics behind plasmodesmata-mediated cell-to-cell communication A new review by Petit et al. skillfully highlights the role of plasmodesmata at the interface between cell biology and whole-plant physiology. These tiny channels that connect plant cells determine what moves from cell-to-cell symplastically, so have roles in just about everything, from developmental patterning […]

Visit us at PAG2020: ASPB, journals, and writing first aid

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ASPB, The Plant Cell, Plant Physiology and Plant Direct will be attending PAG2020 (Plant and Animal Genome) in San Diego this coming January 11-15. Come by our booth to learn more about our journals, our educational and digital programs, and the benefits of ASPB membership. Also, you can take the opportunity to meet Ivan Baxter, […]

Biosynthesis of the nitrogenase active-site cofactor precursor NifB-co in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (PNAS)

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Nitrogenases are large, multisubunit enzymes that require complex metal cofactors. They are the only enzymes capable of fixing N2 into usable form, and are only produced by some archaea and bacteria; “nitrogen-fixing” legumes actually depend on the presence of their bacterial symbionts for this function. Because applying nitrogenous fertilizers to crops is environmentally costly, many […]

Dynamic ubiquitination determines transcriptional activity of the plant immune coactivator NPR1 (eLIFE)

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Dynamic ubiquitination determines transcriptional activity of the plant immune coactivator NPR1 Plants (and animals) need to strike a delicate balance when activating their immune responses: not too much and not too little. The transcriptional coactivator NPR1 [nonexpressor of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes 1] has long been known to have a key role in this balance, and […]

The use of high throughput phenotyping for assessment of heat stress-induced changes in Arabidopsis (bioRxiv)

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With global temperatures rising, tolerance to heat is becoming increasingly important as a breeding target for crop plants, but it is a highly complex response that includes processes including plant cooling capacity, growth recovery, and maintenance of photosynthesis. Using Arabidopsis, Gao et al. developed a pipeline to look for scorable early phenotypic responses to heat, […]

Evolution of carnivorous traps from planar leaves through simple shifts in gene expression (Science)

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When is a leaf not a leaf? When it’s a trap. Just about everyone, including Charles Darwin, has been fascinated by carnivory in plants, which involves the development of structures that capture or trap food. Whitewoods, Gonçalves, Cheng et al. investigated how traps form in the humped bladderwort Utricularia gibba. They imaged developing leaflet and […]