Most plants use the C3 photosynthesis pathway, however many have evolved strategies like C4 photosynthesis that accumulate CO2 around RuBisCO. Burgess et al. performed DNAseI-SEQ in three C4 plants: S. bicolor, Z. mays and S. italica, and one C3: B. dystachion, to offer an insight into the cis-element…

Review: Revolutions in agriculture chart a course for targeted breeding of old and new crops ($) A few traits are associated with domestication across many species. Eshed and Lippman provide an overview of the changes to plant stature and flowering time that have been repeatedly selected by our…

Sims et al. examine the mechanisms protecting the highly repetitive ribosomal DNA from double-strand break formation and homologous repair during meiosis. https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00367 Background: Meiosis is a specialized cell division in sexually reproducing organisms, where one round of DNA…

By Lynn GL Richardson The acid-growth theory was proposed over 40 years ago based on early observations that low apoplastic pH promotes growth in a pathway involving the plant hormone auxin (Rayle and Cleland, 1992; Hager, 2003; Arsuffi and Braybrook, 2018). Since this discovery, a clearer understanding…

By Jennifer Mach, Science Editor I don’t know how polyploids get their chromosomes paired correctly in meiosis— I can’t even sort my socks. Sometimes I give up and pair random socks, but plants can’t go with random pairings, because that’s a route to death, and with genomes in the dozens…

Anahit Galstyan, first author of Auxin promotion of seedling growth via ARF5 is dependent on the brassinosteroid-regulated transcription factors BES1 and BEH4 Current Position: Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, Germany Education:…

Nishikant Wase, first author of Remodeling of Chlamydomonas metabolism using synthetic inducers results in lipid storage during growth Current Position: Senior Research Associate, Department of Biochemistry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA Education: 2011 PhD Department of Chemical and Biological…

Adrian Dauphinee, first author of Chemical screening pipeline for identification of specific plant autophagy modulators Current Position: NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at SLU, Uppsala  Education: PhD in Biology  Non-scientific interests: travel, cycling, graphic design, hockey, swimming, kayaking,…