Recent Posts

Supression of phyB dark reversion by PCH1 and PCHL (Nature Comms.)

Nature Comms. Phytochromes can exist in two states: an inactive state Pr and an active state Pfr. They convert into each other by light absorption. They can also revert to the inactive state by a light-independent thermal relaxation process called dark reversion. Phytochrome B is the primary receptor…

What We're Reading: February 2nd

Nature news feature: The lost art of looking at plants Nature.  With the advent of advanced molecular techniques and tools, the detailed scrutiny of a plant’s physical attributes fell to the wayside. Focus has shifted from physiological characterization of a board range of species to detailed genomic…

Update: Monitoring Polysaccharide Dynamics in the Plant Cell Wall

By Catalin Voiniciuc, Markus Pauly, and Björn Usadel All plant cells are surrounded by complex walls that play a role in growth and differentiation of tissues. Walls provide mechanical integrity and structure to each cell, and represent an interface with neighboring cells and the environment (Somerville…

Ethylene Represses Gene Transcription via Histone Deacetylases

Approximately half of all ethylene-responsive genes are downregulated in the presence in ethylene (Chang et al, 2013), but this repression has received relatively little attention compared to the ethylene-mediated activation of expression. The known positive regulators of ethylene signaling include ETHYLENE…

Recognizing featured Plant Cell first authors: Zhenlin Yang

Zhenlin Yang is featured first author of Structure of the Arabidopsis JMJ14-H3K4me3 Complex Provides Insight into the Substrate Specificity of KDM5 Subfamily Histone Demethylases Current Position: PhD Student, Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese…

Recognizing featured Plant Cell first authors: Xiangsong Chen

Xiangsong Chen is the featured first author of Canonical and Non-canonical Actions of Arabidopsis Histone Deacetylases in Ribosomal RNA Processing Current Position: Postdoctoral fellow in Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, University of Wisconsin-Madison Education: PhD in National Key Laboratory…

In the Histone Zone: The Mighty Eraser

Histones undergo myriad covalent modifications - more than 100 types have been identified in the 50+ years since Allfrey, Faulkner, and Mirsky (1964) found that increased histone acetylation was associated with genomic regions of active transcription (reviewed in Zentner and Henikoff, 2013). Enzymes…

Design Stars: How GRF-INTERACTING FACTORs Help Determine the Layout of the Root Tip

Roots grow into new regions of the soil in their constant quest for water and dissolved minerals. This crucial task is made possible by the root meristem and stem cell niche, where neatly arranged stem cells quickly divide beneath a protective root cap. Stem cells give rise to transit amplifying cells,…

A Novel Class of Histone Readers

Polycomb-group (PcG) proteins are part of an epigenetic memory system that regulates global gene expression throughout development in multicellular eukaryotes (Butenko and Ohad, 2011). Sophisticated mechanisms recruit high molecular weight complexes of PcG proteins to specific targets in the genome.…