Category: Research

Upon germination, the vegetative pollen cell forms a long tubular protrusion, the pollen tube, which rapidly elongates through the pistil and transports the enclosed immobile sperm cells toward the egg and the central cell for double fertilization. To reach the female gametophyte, growing pollen tubes…

Abt et al. found that Arabidopsis SS5, a protein homologous to typical starch-synthesizing enzymes, is itself enzymatically inactive, but rather has an important role in the starch granule initiation process. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00946 By Melanie R. Abt and Samuel C. Zeeman, Institute…

Plants (embryophytes) are by definition multicellular, but we seek to understand them as the sum of the activities of individual cells. Much of this knowledge rests on information obtained through grinding up tissues  made up from several cell types. This review by Luo et al. describes methods for plant…

Alternative splicing is a process that can produce two or more transcript isoforms from a single gene and can increase protein diversity. FERONIA (FER) is a receptor-like kinase that serves as a receptor for the rapid alkalinization factor (RALF) peptides that regulate multiple cellular activities in…

Among the stresses that sessile plants face, wounding is peculiar as it can be caused by both biotic and abiotic sources. While studies of wounding in animal systems have largely focused on the repair mechanisms, less is known about wound healing in plants. In an attempt to throw light on this, Hoermayer…

Responses to a changing environment require an interplay between primary and secondary messengers. Hormones like abscisic acid (ABA), auxin etc. act as a primary messengers, whereas molecules like Ca2+, reactive oxygen species (ROS), other cations and anions act as a secondary messenger. In this paper,…

Abscisic acid (ABA) is a phytohormone involved in imparting tolerance to a variety of stress conditions. Importantly, ABA is involved in stomatal closure, mediated by the sucrose non-fermenting1-related protein kinase 2 (SnRK2) family of proteins. To report SnRK2 activity in vivo, Zhang and co-workers…

Crop production is greatly influenced by the duration of the last stage of plant life cycle, senescence, through degradation of resources in leaves and remobilization of nutrients to developing seeds. Indeed, higher grain yield of important cereals such as maize and sorghum can be achieved by using stay-green…