Entries by Mary Williams

Review: The role of peptides cleaved from protein precursors in eliciting plant stress reactions (New Phytol)

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Although the first signaling peptide identified in plants, systemin, is involved in stress responses, developmentally important peptide signals have largely occupied the limelight. This Tansley Review by Chen et al. summarizes recent insights into peptides with a role in stress responses: wounding, pathogen infection, nutrient imbalance, drought and high salinity. Many were first identified computationally, […]

Next-Gen sequence databases: RNA and genomic informatics resources for plants (Plant Physiol)

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Drawing on more than 15 years of improvements, Nakano et al. have released public websites and resources for data access, display, and analysis of plant small RNAs, from Arabidopsis to wheat and with many crops and model species represented. The tools can analyze, integrate and display the abundance of small RNAs, RNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq data, […]

Penium margaritaceum genome bears footprints of evolutionary origins of land plants (bioRxiv)

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The Zygnematophyceae are the green algae that are most closely related to land plants. Some species in this clade are considered subaerial, meaning that they can live under air (as opposed to under water). The green films you see on tree trunks and walls are often Zygnematophycaea. Several new insights into the terrestrialization of land […]

Emergence of the Ug99 lineage of the wheat stem rust pathogen through somatic hybridization (Nature Comms)

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The Ug99 strain of wheat stem rust pathogen Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici (Pgt) emerged in Uganda in 1999 and presents a significant threat to global wheat production. Genetic analysis indicates it is distinct from other Pgt races. Li et al. set out to understand its origins. Puccinia graminis are dikaryotic fungi meaning they carry […]

Pollination of Cretaceous flowers (PNAS)

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Like something from Jurassic Park, a tiny insect embedded in amber has provided new insights into life millions of years ago. But in this case, the 99 million year old insect shows us that, as Darwin surmised, insects really were important contributors to angiosperm pollination from their origins. In fact, this pollen-carrying insect (a tumbling […]

Plant Science Research Weekly: November 22

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Review: The role of peptides cleaved from protein precursors in eliciting plant stress reactions Although the first signaling peptide identified in plants, systemin, is involved in stress responses, developmentally important peptide signals have largely occupied the limelight. This Tansley Review by Chen et al. summarizes recent insights into peptides with a role in stress responses: […]

New Teaching Tool, “Computational Microscopy: Revealing Molecular Mechanisms in Plants Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations”

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We’re excited to annouce the publication of The Plant Cell‘s latest Teaching Tool, “Computational Microscopy: Revealing Molecular Mechanisms in Plants Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations,” by Jiangyan Feng, Jiming Chen, Balaji Selvam, and Diwakar Shukla. Available without subscription at The Plant Cell (soon) and Plantae.org. DOWNLOAD THE RESOURCES HERE Virtually all processes in living organisms, from […]