“The 1980s were an exciting and revolutionary time for biology, and plant molecular biology in particular,” begins an editorial by Bob Goldberg, Brian Larkins, and Ralph Quatrano, the three Founding Editors of The Plant Cell. They describe why the American Society of Plant Physiologists (ASPP; later, ASPB) felt that the time was right for a […]
Wheat is of course a hugely important food for humans, and has been selectively bred across the globe for millennia. Modern bread wheats are hexaploid and contain three distinct subgenomes (AABBDD). As with other crops, there is a need to understand wheat’s ancestry and explore the greater genetic diversity of its extended family as sources […]
Like other seed crops, wheat yields depend in part on the efficiency with which nutrients stored in leaves are mobilized into the developing seeds. This depends on the several processes from macromolecule breakdown to transport, as well as the timing of leaf senescence. Borrill et al. used RNA analysis and gene regulatory network (GRN) modeling […]
Yams (Dioscorea spp.) were domesticated independently in three continents. African yam (Dioscorea rotundata) is the second most produced crop in Africa, after cassava but ahead of maize, rice and sorghum. Scarcelli et al. use a genomic approach to learn more about its domestication, by sequencing many varieties of the domesticated species as well as its […]
Reflections on Classics: Plant Cell‘s 30th anniversary “The 1980s were an exciting and revolutionary time for biology, and plant molecular biology in particular,” begins an editorial by Bob Goldberg, Brian Larkins, and Ralph Quatrano, the three Founding Editors of The Plant Cell. They describe why the American Society of Plant Physiologists (ASPP; later, ASPB) felt […]
In 2019, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Plant Cell. In recognition of this milestone, we have solicted a series of reflections by members of the editorial board and others. We asked them to write about one or more memorable and exciting articles published in The Plant Cell, and how it influenced our […]
Iron uptake is tightly controlled so that the plant takes up not too much but not too little. Khan et al. used a yeast two-hybrid screen to search for proteins that interact with the iron transporter IRT1. They identified a protein previously shown to be involved in the hypocotyl bending response, EHB1 (ENHANCED BENDING1), which […]
CRISPR/Cas9 is a promising gene editing tool that has already been successfully used to modify many plant genes. In these applications, the gene editing machinery is transiently employed to make a stable genomic change which is then passed on to the progeny. A different application is to use CRISPR/Cas9 for defense against viruses; after all, […]
Durum wheat genome highlights past domestication signatures and future improvement targets Durum wheat cultivar Svevo (Triticum turgidum L. ssp. durum) is a cereal crop predominantly grown for pasta production. It is the result of multiple rounds of domestication, originally deriving from wild emmer wheat from the Fertile Crescent approximately 10,000 years ago. Here, Maccaferri et […]