Clamydomonas reinhardtii is the most thoroughly characterized unicellular alga. Like yeast, it is a single-celled eukaryotic organism that is easy to culture, and it lives predominantly in its haploid form but is readily mated for genetic studies. Additionally, it is light-responsive, photosynthetic, and a facultative photoautotroph (meaning that it can be grown in the absence […]
One of the things I like most about synthetic biology is the “why not” attitude. This article by Bernhardsgrütter et al. is intriguing because rather than taking the standard “let’s fix Rubisco approach,” the authors started with a non-CO2 fixing enzyme and engineered it towards having carboxylase activity. Why not? The authors used the Design-Build-Test […]
Opium poppies produce opiates including morphine and thebaine. Derivatives of these compounds can also have diverse beneficial properties. One of these, naloxone, is a competitive opioid receptor antagonist that can be administered to counteract the effects of opioid overdose. Because of the rise in opioid abuse and addiction (130 Americans die every day from an […]
Root hairs vastly increase the surface area of the root in contact with the soil substrate, and are crucial for efficient water and nutrient uptake. They are also an excellent system for studies of polar growth or tip growth in cells, a process that involves the cytoskeleton, defined membrane domains, and vesicle trafficking. Rho-type GTPases […]
Review: A series of fortunate events: Introducing Chlamydomonas as a reference organism Clamydomonas reinhardtii is the most thoroughly characterized unicellular alga. Like yeast, it is a single-celled eukaryotic organism that is easy to culture, and it lives predominantly in its haploid form but is readily mated for genetic studies. Additionally, it is light-responsive, photosynthetic, and […]
The 12 Principles of Plant Biology are a framework to support understanding of the critical roles of plants to create, improve and sustain life. These 12 inquiry-based activities were by Jane Ellis, Mary Williams, and Jeffrey Coker with support from the ASPB Education Foundation. They were developed to support the teaching of plant biology, and […]
The rate of most biological processes is ultimately determined by protein activity levels, which of course are determined by rate of degradation or inactivation as well as production. Dissmeyer reviews the Cys/Arg branch of the N-degron pathway (previously called the N-end rule pathway) that contributes to protein degradation. In this pathway, post-translational modifications including excision […]
Transport protein particles (TRAPPs) are multisubunit complexes that regulate intracellular trafficking, but haven’t yet been well characterized in plant cells. The authors previously identified AtTRAPPC11 as an abundant protein in the SYP61 vesicle proteome, with homology to mammalian TRAPPC11. Here, Rosquete et al. show that loss-of-function of TRAPPC11 causes abnormalities in the SYP61 vesicle trafficking […]
Review: Source–sink regulation in crops under water deficit ($) Plants have a remarkable ability to coordinate cellular activities across huge distances, yet we have only a basic understanding of how these remote activities are coordinated. A review by Rodrigues et al. summarizes what we know about the relationship between source (e.g., photosynthetic tissues) and sinks […]