Recent Posts

What We’re Reading: August 11

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J. Exp. Bot. reviews auxin ($) The Journal of Experimental Botany is publishing a good collection of review articles on auxin. Topics include ARF transcription factors, Auxin’s role in lateral root formation, Auxin research in rice and implications for crop improvement, Integration of multiple auxin…

Metabolic engineering of anthocyanin and betalain pigments for health and aesthetics: Purple rice, blue chrysanthemums and violet tomatoes

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Pigment engineering was featured in three recent papers. Anthocyanins are blue pigments valued for their antioxidant health benefits and for their beauty, but their biosynthesis and chemistry is complex. Noda et al. introduced two genes to produce blue anthocyanins in chrysanthemum petals (Sci Advances…

Rhamnose-containing cell wall polymers suppress helical plant growth independently of microtubule orientation

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Saffer et al. identified an Arabidpsis mutant with swirled petals and with petal epidermal cells that show a left-handed (but never right-handed) twist. They mapped the mutation to the RHAMNOSE BIOSYNTHESIS1 (RHM1) gene, which is most highly expressed in petal epidermal cells and encodes an enzyme that…