Double attack! Herbivore insects feed on plants and silence their genes
Plant Science Research WeeklyIn the natural environment, plants are constantly attacked by animals. Plant immunity is regulated by a network of genes and hormones including salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA). A recent study suggests that herbivore insects threaten plants with concerns more than the bite. Han et al., found…
Plant Science Research Weekly: February 7, 2025
WWR Full PostReview: Genetic engineering for carbon assimilation in plants
Rubisco (Ribulose‐1,5‐bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase) is the central enzyme for photosynthesis, This enzyme poorly discriminates between CO2 and O2, which limits its efficiency. To work around this and make carbon assimilation…
Review. Unraveling plant-microbe interaction dynamics: Insights from the Tripartite Symbiosis Model
Plant Science Research WeeklyPlants naturally interact with a diverse array of microorganisms, which influence their fitness in various ways. However, understanding these plant-microbe interactions and applying the knowledge in real-world agricultural systems has been challenging. Most experimental research focuses on bipartite…
Review: High-yield farming is essential to slow biodiversity loss
Plant Science Research WeeklyIt’s 2025, and although we live in a world saturated with information, is increasingly difficult to sort fact from propaganda or fiction. This is true in all arenas, including plant science. Calls for strategies to improve crop yields are sometimes met with criticisms that higher yielding crops would…
Capsella rubella: My Fruity Valentine
Blog, Plant Science Research WeeklyMost shapes in plant organs are pre-determined at the primordial stage and from this point, growth will establish and maintain this shape. Rarely will re-shaping of an organ occur post-organogenesis. However, Hu et al. describe a notable exception in Capsella rubella, a close relative of Arabidopsis…
SOS1, salt, and cryo-imaging of subcellular element distribution
Blog, Plant Science Research WeeklyFor living organisms, proper control of element location is just as important as the control of enzyme location, but harder to study. A new study by Ramakrishna et al. uses an exciting new technology, cryo nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry ion microprobe, to investigate elemental distribution…
Repairing a detrimental domestication variant improves tomato harvests
Blog, Plant Science Research WeeklyDomesticated plants and animals are remarkable human achievements but were achieved with rather blunt instruments. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that some of the genes and alleles that passed through the population bottlenecks and artificial selection process are deleterious. Glaus et…
Interconnected memories: How heat stress and bacterial infection shape plant resilience
Blog, Plant Science Research WeeklyMemory—a mysterious cognitive process that retains information over time and shapes future interpretations and actions—is not exclusive to animals. In plants, a similar phenomenon occurs where past exposure to environmental stressors is “memorized,” enabling plants to respond more effectively…
Single cell multiomic analysis of plant immunity reveals PRIMER cells
Plant Science Research WeeklySingle cell mutiomics are radically changing our understanding of pretty much every cellular process. Here, Nobori et al. integrated single-cell transcriptomic, epigenomic and spatial transcriptomic data to investigate plant responses to pathogens. The authors used three different strains of Pseudomonas…