In a recent review, Nieves-Cordones and Rubio highlight the species-specific strategies used by Arabidopsis and crop plants to regulate potassium (K⁺) and sodium (Na⁺) transport, which challenges the universality of Arabidopsis thaliana research. In Arabidopsis, K⁺ uptake is largely mediated by AKT1-type voltage-gated channels, whereas crops like rice and tomato rely more heavily on HAK5-type […]
In their perspective article, “Life on the dry side: a roadmap to understanding desiccation tolerance and accelerating translational applications,” Marks et al. outline the current state and future promise of desiccation tolerance research. They define desiccation tolerance as “the ability to dry to a quiescent state and resume normal cellular function when rehydrated,” a process […]
Membrane contact sites (MCSs) serve a critical role in intracellular communication, particularly between organelle membranes, enabling direct molecular transfer. Less clear is the role MCSs play in intercellular communication. New evidence from Pérez-Sancho et al. implicates plasmodesmata in this function and their endoplasmic reticulum-plasma membrane (ER-PM) MCSs. Unique to land plants and some green algae […]