The P-body component DECAPPING5 regulates flowering time via liquid-liquid phase separation
The Plant Cell: In a NutshellWang et al. investigate role of the DCP5-SSF complex in the nucleus
https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koad151
Wanyi Wang, Chuanhong Wang, Yunhe Wang, Jing Ma. The National Engineering Lab of Crop Stress Resistance Breeding, the School of Life Sciences, Anhui Agricultural University.
Background:…
Chloroplast double-stranded RNA can silence nuclear genes
The Plant Cell: In a NutshellBélanger et al. investigate the silencing of nuclear genes mediated by chloroplast double-stranded RNA transgenes The Plant Cell (2023).
https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koad165
By Sébastien Bélanger
Background: Plants have three genomes: the nuclear, the mitochondrial and the chloroplast…
Review. Sustainable protein production: Opportunities for cereals
Plant Science Research WeeklyAs the world’s population increases, protein production must increase. If not, levels of protein malnutrition leading to stunted growth, hair loss, and edema will rise. Here Safdar et al. propose that cereals could be bred to be major protein sources. They argue that cereals already make up approximately…
Review: Scripting a new dialogue between diazotrophs and crops
Plant Science Research WeeklyAll organisms need nitrogen to produce nucleic and amino acids, but nitrogen-limitation is common for many plants. Although nitrogen is very abundant in the atmosphere, most is inaccessible due to the triple bond that renders N2 relatively inert. Tremendous crop yields in recent decades are attributable…
Essay. Biomedical publishing: Past, present, and future
Plant Science Research WeeklyIn this essay, Richard Sever (founder of bioRxiv) provides a history of scholarly publishing, starting with the Royal Society Philosophical Transactions (1665). He then provides an overview of the current landscape: not-for-profit society publishers versus for-profit publishers; a breakdown of the real…
RNA hairpins underlie preferential use of translation start codons
Plant Science Research WeeklyGene expression regulation facilitates environmental adaptation and survival. This recent paper by Xiang et al. focuses on the regulation of translation, in particular on the mechanism underlying the generation of different translation products in different conditions. In addition to the main start codon…
Transposable element abundance and fitness in maize
Plant Science Research WeeklyIn this interesting paper, Stritzer et al. asked a simple question, which required a very sophisticated approach to answer. Do transposable elements (TEs) affect fitness in maize? This is a particularly interesting question as 85% of the maize genome is composed of TEs or TE fragments, including over…
A transient approach reduces the time required for transgene-free gene editing
Plant Science Research WeeklyGene editing in plants is a time-consuming process. One of the challenges of gene editing is to produce transgene-free plants. The transgenes required to carry out selection and editing, such as antibiotic resistance markers and editing enzymes, must be removed, while the edited part of the genome is…
Genomic regions of durum wheat involved in water productivity
Plant Science Research WeeklyDrought stress is a major problem and can cause large reductions in yield. Water productivity is the amount of yield per unit of water used, hence a higher water productivity is associated with more drought tolerance. Here, Zaïm et al. discovered three genomic loci associated with increased water productivity…