Magdalena M. Julkowska Magdalena.Julkowska@kaust.edu.sa Improvement of crops using traditional breeding is too slow to ensure food production able to sustain the growing human population, especially in the face of climate change (Hickey et al., 2019). Transformation methods for monocot crops depend…

In addition to promoting plant growth and development, the colonization of roots by beneficial microorganisms often provides aboveground tissues with enhanced resistance to pathogen attack. This form of resistance, referred to as ‘induced systemic resistance’ (ISR), relies on the long-distance movement…

Guest Editor : Facundo Romani I am in an Argentinean PhD student at Universidad Nacional del Litoral (Santa Fe, Argentina) and current ASPB Plantae Fellow. I am about to finish my PhD program, during past years I worked with Javier Moreno as supervisor and spent a long stay at Monash University…

O’Leary et al. show that the TOR signalling pathway in plants responds to amino acid levels by eliciting regulatory effects on respiratory energy metabolism at night, uniting a hallmark mechanism of TOR regulation across eukaryotes. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00157 By Brendan O’Leary…

Magdalena M. Julkowska Magdalena.Julkowska@kaust.edu.sa Stomata are the gatekeepers of plant water status, regulating the balance between plant CO2 uptake and water loss. Stomatal conductance (gs) can be estimated by microscopy of wax or plastic leaf surface imprints, but this technique is time…

Aung et al. reveal that pathogenic bacteria target plant plasmodesmata to colonize and invade surrounding tissues. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00707 By Kyaw Aung and Sheng Yang He   Background: Multicellular organisms like animals and plants host a multitude of microorganisms.…

The Plant Cell welcomes 12 new Assistant Features Editors (AFEs) for 2020. They join six continuing AFEs who started in 2019. We would also like to thank all of the original AFEs who stepped down from the editorial board in 2018-2019, who helped us to establish the program and provided valuable input…

Reddit et al. show that an effector protein from a pathogen modifies a host factor by ADP ribosylation, thereby activating defenses. The Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00020  Background: To protect themselves against disease, plants employ a family of intracellular receptors called…