Much of the focus of functional genomics studies in plants is to improve yield, disease resistance, abiotic stress tolerance and nutritional quality. Many desirable traits are controlled by sets of genes that are coordinated in a complex network, called a gene regulatory network (GRN). A transcription…

Plants develop new organs and tissues throughout their lifespan as they grow new leaves, roots and reproductive structures. Many of these tissues arise from similar tissues, such as lateral roots arising from primary roots, and the mechanisms guiding their formation are well understood. But what about…

Adventitious roots, i.e. those derived from non-root tissues, are key elements of the plastic architecture of root systems. Auxins and cytokinins are known to induce and inhibit (respectively) adventitious root formation, though the exact mechanism remains to be fully explained. Here, Damodaran and Strader…

The obligate biotrophic pathogen Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici (Bgt) is the cause of wheat powdery mildew, a foliar disease that results in significant yield loss in most wheat-growing regions across the globe. This research focuses on the identification and functional analysis of the powdery mildew…

Contrary to common belief, roses do not have thorns: instead, they have prickles. Thorns (as in hawthorns) are modified stems, spines (as in cactus spines) are modified leaves, and prickles (as in roses) are modified epidermal tissues. Prickles occur in a wide range of plants. Satterlee et al. set out…

While single-cell omics technologies, particularly transcriptomics, are already becoming widely adopted in plant science, quantifying proteins at single cell resolution is less established. Fortunately, important technological strides have been made that improve sample preparation, separation techniques,…

Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems harbor remarkable plant diversity. Some of this diversity can be quantified as functional traits, which provide a measure for diversity in different environments. In this new work, Gross et al. used a functional trait analysis to examine how plants respond to increasing…

People often fail to recognize and appreciate the importance of plants, a phenomenon known as Plant Awareness Disparity (PAD), also known as plant blindness. This lack of awareness has a negative impact on botanical knowledge and skill acquisitions, consequently affecting biodiversity conservation efforts.…