Recent Posts

Recognizing Plant Physiology first authors: Said Hafidh

Said Hafidh, first author of Dynamics of Nicotiana tabacum pollen sequestrome defined by subcellular coupled omics Current Position:  Research fellow, Institute of Experimental Botany (IEB), Prague Education: BSc and PhD at the University of Leicester (2002-2009) Non-scientific Interests: Cycling,…

Recognizing Plant Physiology first authors: Jing Wang

Jing Wang, first author of AnnAt1 and AnnAt2 regulate Arabidopsis primary root growth in response to sugar Current Position:  Ph.D candidate in University of Texas Education: Master of Science in Shandong University, China Non-scientific Interests:  Cooking, hiking and traveling Brief bio:…

Recognizing Plant Cell first authors: Lin Zhang

Lin Zhang, first author of Nucleus-encoded Protein BFA1 Promotes Efficient Assembly of the Chloroplast ATP Synthase Coupling Factor 1 Current Position: Postdoctoral fellow, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China. Education: PhD in Developmental Biology…

Cellulose Synthase Stoichiometry Varies among Species and Tissues

Cellulose, the most abundant biopolymer on earth, is an important structural component of the primary and secondary cell wall of plant cells. It is also found in animals (tunicates), oomycetes, and bacteria (Kumar and Turner, 2015). Besides providing support and rigidity in living organisms, cellulose…

Save Time and Fish for the Clock

Plants live by the clock. It helps them to predict day and night as well as upcoming seasons, and to decide when it’s time for reproduction. These predictions depend on oscillating processes that involve gene transcription and protein stability, cycling in a period of, for example, 24 h. Environmental…

Subcellular Spice Trade Routes: Crocin Biosynthesis in the Saffron Crocus (Crocus sativus)

Commentary by Trevor H. Yeats and Raimund Nagel Saffron is produced from the stigmas and styles of Crocus sativus flowers and is one of the most expensive spices. In C. sativus, both stigma and style are intensely crimson red in color due to the presence of three major classes of apocarotenoids: crocins,…

Managing Competing Interests: Partitioning S between Glutathione and Protein Synthesis

Sulfur (S) is an essential element for cell function and responses to the environment. The primary S source is sulfate, which, following uptake by specific transporters, is reduced and incorporated into the amino acids Cysteine (Cys) and Methionine, and thereafter into proteins and peptides, including…

Releasing the Cytokinin Brakes on Root Growth

Roots explore the soil for available water and nutrients, with deep roots providing water from the lower soil layers (Uga et al., 2015) and highly branched roots searching the soil for less-mobile nutrients such as phosphate, zinc, and manganese. Root architecture results from plant developmental programs,…

A Lipid Synthesis Enzyme Confers Freezing Tolerance

Despite major advances in understanding cold signaling, cold acclimation, and freezing protection in model and crop species, and extensive studies of natural variation in freezing tolerance in Arabidopsis accessions, the question of which genes and mechanisms underlie freezing tolerance of wild species…