It has been quite a few months since our last episode! We intended to have a new season out by now, but as you might imagine, a few things got in the way. We are, however, back to working on topics and guests for Season 5 so stay tuned for new episodes this Fall! In the meantime, we want to hear…

Seedling growth and development rely on the successful integration of information from external signals, such as light and temperature, and endogenous processes, such as the rhythmic ticking of the circadian clock. Together, these signaling pathways tune hypocotyl elongation to allow seedlings to escape…

Rodrigues et al. found that the source and sink identities of sugar beet shoots vs. taproots are switched upon vernalization (chilling) due to a cold-induced reversal of the phloem stream. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00072 By Cristina Martins Rodriguesa, Christina Müdsamb and Benjamin…

Gamete formation in sexually reproducing plants begins with formation of a “mother cell” that undergoes meiosis to generate haploid spores. Haploid spores further develop into gametophytes within which gametes differentiate. In flowering plants (angiosperms), including crop systems, the female mother…

Eva Hellmann, The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, CB2 1LR Cambridge, United Kingdom [email protected] Phosphorus (P) is an essential plant nutrient and makes up part of membranes, DNA and RNA; it also serves as energy currency in the form of ATP cycling. It is involved…

Review. Roles of plant retinoblastoma protein: cell cycle and beyond The cell cycle is at the heart of processes such as cell division, fate acquisition and cell cycle exit towards differentiation. Decades of cell cycle research in animals and yeast have outlined the main components that control the…

When we cut out cookies from rolled-out dough, we often end up with unwanted dough scraps, and sometimes the dough sticks to the cookie-cutter, resulting in misshapen cookies. Just like these misshapen cookies, faulty or aberrant RNAs can arise in cells due to mistakes during transcription, RNA processing,…

Liu et al. connect small RNA biogenesis and meiotic recombination by examining RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 6. The Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00213   By Changzhen Liu, Yi Shen and Zhukuan Cheng  Background: Meiosis is a specialized cell division that takes place in sexually…