Genome wide association studies (GWAS) identify genomic loci associated with a specific trait. However, these loci often contain many genes, so selecting which to investigate further can be tricky. To improve this Whitt, et al. developed a program called FiReMAGE (filtering results of multi-species, analogous GWAS experiments), which takes loci from many GWAS experiments conducted […]
Starch is synthesized in the chloroplasts of leaves during the day and degraded at night. BAM1 (β-AMYLASE 1) catalyzes starch degradation and interacts with the non-catalytic glucan phosphatase called LSF1 (LIKE SEX FOUR 1) and the plastid localised MDH (MALATE DEHYDROGENASE). However, we don’t fully understand how these proteins function together. Here, Liu et al. […]
As the world’s population increases, protein production must increase. If not, levels of protein malnutrition leading to stunted growth, hair loss, and edema will rise. Here Safdar et al. propose that cereals could be bred to be major protein sources. They argue that cereals already make up approximately 50% of our daily calories, so adopting […]
Drought stress is a major problem and can cause large reductions in yield. Water productivity is the amount of yield per unit of water used, hence a higher water productivity is associated with more drought tolerance. Here, Zaïm et al. discovered three genomic loci associated with increased water productivity in durum wheat. They grew 384 […]
Rice is a globally important crop, therefore increasing yield without compromising quality is of much interest. A reduction in the amount of the TGW6 (THOUSAND-GRAIN WEIGHT 6) protein is associated with improved grain yield and quality in rice. However, we do not fully understand how TGW6 protein levels are controlled in developing rice grains. Here, […]
Land plants have enormous diversity; however we do not fully understand how this has arisen. In this review article James Clark discusses how genome dynamics and gene loss contribute to genome evolution and the generation of diversity and complexity. He explains how genome evolution is non-homogenous across time with specific periods where plants underwent rapid […]
Microtubule binding proteins are important in determining fruit shape by driving changes in microtubule arrangement. However, in depth molecular studies on these in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) have been limited. Here, Bao et al. investigated the microtubule binding protein Microtubule-Associated Protein 70 (MAP70), which is highly expressed in developing tomato fruits. Knocking out map70-1 and its […]
Common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is a self-incompatible orphan crop which is gaining interest as it can be grown worldwide and grows well in low fertility soil. However, there are limited genomic resources available for common buckwheat. Here Fawcett et al. combined Illumnia short-read data with PacBio HiFi long-read data to produce a 1.27 Gb chromosome-level […]
Chloroplasts are the location of key processes including photosynthesis, starch synthesis and lipid synthesis. However, many chloroplast proteins have unknown functions, a problem that can in part by addressed through high-resolution localization data. Here, 1034 putative chloroplast- localized proteins were tagged with a C-terminal fluorescent Venus tag, constitutively expressed in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, […]