Genome editing with the CRISPR/Cas system is now widely used in functional studies across biological sciences including plant biology. Typically, this system involves a DNA nuclease and a guide RNA that directs the nuclease to a specific location in the genome. Golden Gate (GG) is a cloning method that…

Plants are equipped with multiple mechanosensitive (MS) ion channels that respond to external and internal mechanical perturbations. When one of these, AtMSL10, is overexpressed it leads to a cell death phenotype, although there is no discernible phenotype associated with its loss of function. Recently…

EIN2 is a key regulator of the ethylene response and a protein with a complex function and regulation. Zander et al. have uncovered an interesting and complex mechanism by which its expression is regulated. Many genes are regulated through histone modifications, with the histone variant H2A.Z and the…

Precise temporal control is crucial for plant developmental processes, e.g., photosynthesis, leaf movement, and flowering. In this work, Greenwood et al. studied how rhythms are coordinated at the whole-organism level. The authors monitored the activity of GIGANTEA (GI), a core clock gene, using a LUCIFERASE…

In recent years, studies in the model bryophyte Marchantia polymorpha have provided insights on how the Jasmonic Acid (JA) pathway works in early diverging land plants, starting from its biosynthesis (Yamamoto et al., 2015; Koeduka et al., 2015), followed by perception (Monte et al, 2018) and co-repressor…

Plant peptide patterning is popping up everywhere! Now Kawamoto et al. show that a pair of peptides, interacting with receptor proteins, coordinates the placement of ovules in Arabidopsis. They started with a natural variation analysis, which highlighted that several varieties with mutations in the ERECTA…

Nutrient exchange during plant-fungal symbiosis allows assimilation of nutrients necessary for plant growth in a beneficial way. Several plants have evolved to form symbioses with mycorrhizal fungi and rhizobia bacteria that allow the plants to efficiently take up nitrogen and phosphorous. In its interactions…

We have a tendency to think of genes carrying mutations as having a negative impact on fitness, which raises the question of why they might persist in a population. Taylor et al. tested whether large-effect mutations that affect flowering time might not be detrimental in all conditions, by comparing…