For the remainder of June and July, several Plantae Fellows will take turns editing the What We’re Reading series. The Plantae Fellows were selected for their interest in communicating science, and they are looking forward to wearing the Editor hat and sharing their selections with you in the coming…

Calcium signaling is a common plant response to many different stimuli. Vincent et al. used a fluorescent calcium reporter, GCaMP3, to record calcium responses in Arabidopsis to feeding by aphids (specifically, the green peach aphid Myzus persicae). Through analysis of various mutants, key components…

Anyone who is trying to manage a laboratory on a budget will enjoy reading about the efforts of Henrici et al., who have designed a pair of plasmids that together can be digested with one of two restriction enzymes to produce either 100-bp or 1000-bp DNA molecular weight markers. As the authors report,…

Pathogen perception leads to local and systemic immune responses including systemic acquired resistance (SAR). The nature of the mobile signals and their movements remain uncertain. Riedlmeier et al. demonstrated that certain monoterpenes including α- and β-pinene accumulate in SAR-inducing conditions…

Iron is an essential nutrient that plants assimilate from the soil. Moderate iron deficiency induces an increase in primary root length and lateral root production. Satbhai et al. examined natural variation of root responses and showed a correlation between root length and allelic variation at the FRO2…

Tomatoes normally grow as multiple flowers along a single branch. Soyk et al. explored a large collection of wild and domesticated accessions to identify those with branched inflorescences, which should be able to produce more fruit per plant. They identified a few related branchy mutants which they…

The genus Nicotiana encompasses several species and hybrids, the most famous being Nicotiana tabacum, cultivated for production of tobacco. Xu et al. sequenced the genome of Nicotiana attenuata and Nicotiana obtusifolia with an interest in identifying the origins of nicotine biosynthesis. Nicotine is…

SPA (SUPPRESSOR OF PHYTOCHROME A-105) proteins form a complex with COP1  (CONSTITUTIVELY PHOTOMORPHOGENIC 1) and are required for COP1 to respond to changes in the light environment and transduce light signals and influence plant development. In this paper, Balcerowicz et al. investigated the importance…