Jianbo Xie, first author of Evolutionary origins of pseudogenes and their association with regulatory sequences in plants Current Position: Associate professor of College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China Educations: 2010-2015, Ph. D. College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University Non-scientific Interests: Billiards and traveling Brief bio: During my Ph. D. […]
Hao Chen, first author of Hierarchical Transcription-Factor and Chromatin Binding Network for Wood Formation in Populus trichocarpa Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, North Carolina State University, USA. Education: 2011-2017 MS and PhD in Forestry, North Carolina State University, USA Non-scientific Interests: Running, financial writing, and reading. Brief bio: After graduation, […]
This is a great essay by David Asai, Senior Director for science education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. David describes his journey from feeling annoyed at having to attend a multicultural forum to embracing their merit. He describes exercises that promote empathy and encourage respectful listening. He writes, “We understand that scientific excellence depends […]
Plant activities change drastically between the light and dark times of day. Many of these different activities can be observed through transcriptional studies, which show that gene expression goes up and down over the course of the day. Many of these transcriptional changes are driven by the circadian clock. Here Prado et al. show that […]
There are many forms of hunger, one of which is micronutrient deficiency. Cassava is a staple food, but low in iron and zinc, in many regions where deficiencies of these micronutrients are common; therefore efforts have been made to biofortify cassava. Traditional breeding methods are of limited value as there is little genetic diversity in cassava […]
Lignin, polymerized from aromatic monolignols, provides strength to cell walls but its resistance to enzymatic degradation thwarts efforts to isolate cellulosic carbohydrates from cell walls for biofuels and other applications. It has been shown that lignin’s properties can be altered by the incorporation of other monomers. Here, Oyarce et al. have introduced genes for the […]
Genomics and transcriptomics have brought huge advances in understanding of plant science, but proteomics is both more challenging and in some ways more relevant to understand what is happening inside of a cell. Proteins function largely through their interactions with other proteins, so it is important to be able to confidently predict protein-protein interactions. Dong […]
Imaging proteins through fluorescent tagging is tremendously powerful but also tricky. In this very useful paper, Stottard and Rolland survey the properties of 10 fluorescent tags to determine their effectiveness in the low pH environment of the plant cell wall and apoplast. The authors also test the propensity for the fluorescent proteins to aggregate, and […]
Pathogens and pests are bad, but just how bad? And how do different regions of the world compare in terms of crop losses to pathogens and pests? Savary et al. surveyed crop experts from across the globe to address these questions, focusing on five major food crops (wheat, rice, maize, potato and soybean). They identify […]