Damage to DNA occurs through exposure to environmental stresses in animal and plant kingdoms alike. While the former groups are relatively well explored when it comes to DNA damage response (DDR) mechanisms, plant-related knowledge lags behind. A recent study by Wang et al. revealed a unique plant DDR protein identified through genetic screens of the […]
Genes are generally expressed in concert with one another with data often represented by gene co-expression networks. Gene co-expression data may be useful in identifying genes with unknown functions and are generally utilized in exploring molecular processes occurring during normal development as well as during biological stresses. ATTED-II, is a database of plant gene coexpression […]
Mechanisms of phytohormone modulation and their interface with other regulatory molecules are still being uncovered. Nitric oxide (NO) is a regulatory molecule which has been shown to affect ethylene biosynthesis through the action of ETHYLENE RESPONSE FACTOR 5 (ERF5) in apple fruit. New work by Ji et al. demonstrates that ERF5 nucleocytoplasmic shuttling is dependent […]
Plants have a plethora of oxygen requiring enzymes that are essential for survival. Mitochondria require oxygen to create ATP, yet during hypoxia they can alter gene expression in the nucleus through retrograde signaling, which may promote stress tolerance. Barreto et al. recently delineated a novel actor in the elusive signal transduction pathway in retrograde signaling […]
Many biological processes are controlled by the circadian clock in plants, yet studies often don’t report sampling timepoints, leaving much to be discovered about the plant circadian rhythm. Apelt et al. have utilised single cell RNA sequencing to examine almost 70,000 Arabidopsis cells from above and below ground tissues at day-end and night-end timepoints to […]
Release of scents or volatile compounds influence pollinator preference for or localisation of many flora. In excess of 1,700 distinct floral scents have been classified to date, yet our understanding of biosynthetic processes associated with many scents is limited. Kang et al. recently determined the biosynthetic pathway associated with a wild tobacco volatile compound known […]