Recent Posts

A well-oiled machine: two fatty-acid exporters involved in seed oil biosynthesis

A well-oiled machine: two fatty-acid exporters involved in seed oil biosynthesis Mehran Dastmalchi mdastmalchi@brocku.ca Oilseed plants such as canola (Brassica spp.) are a massive, multi-billion dollar industry, with their lipids contributing to food, cosmetics, polymers and biofuels. For the…

Tuning to the signal of stress: sub-cellular regulation of abscisic acid receptor abundance by E3 ubiquitin ligases

Magdalena M. Julkowska Magdalena.Julkowska@kaust.edu.sa   Developmental and environmental changes are communicated systemically throughout the plant by various signals, ranging from electric currents to plant hormones. As the responses elicited by the systemic signals depend on the tissue…

Certain Flippases Are Important for Vegetative Growth

Lipid flippases hydrolyze ATP to flip lipids across a membrane bilayer toward cytosolic facing leaflets, whether that be from the outer leaflet of the plasma membrane (PM) or luminal leaflet of internal membranes. Flippases are proposed to be involved in multiple processes, such as flipping specific…

Regulation of a K+ Channel A by Phosphorylation

Potassium (K+) serves important roles in plants for the control of cellular pH, regulation of membrane electric potentials and cell turgor, and as a cofactor in essential metabolic processes including protein synthesis. Plasma membrane voltage-gated K+ channels are crucial for K+ uptake, release, and…

Callose Suppresses Low Calcium-Induced Cell Death

Calcium (Ca) deficiency symptoms often occur in crops because Ca is mainly translocated by the transpiration stream, and conditions that affect transpiration can cause Ca deficiency. Because Ca is translocated via the transpiration stream, it tends to accumulate more in older, expanded leaves and less…

Role of Plasma Membrane Aquaporins in Maize

Aquaporins belonging to the plasma membrane intrinsic protein (PIP) subfamily are key players in determining membrane water permeability. Since the overall root hydraulic conductivity (Lpr) depends on the integration of conductivity from three pathways (symplastic, apoplastic and transcellular), it…

The Smell of a Peach or Not

Fruit aromas attract seed-dispersal agents in nature and are critical determinants of human fruit choice.  In the process of constructing a peach (Prunus persica) core germplasm collection, Peng et  al. (10.1104/pp.19.00964) analyzed the characteristics of peach cultivars in the National Fruit Germplasm…

New Insights into Chloroplast Division

Chloroplasts divide by binary fission, a process that is driven by a ring-like multiprotein complex spanning the inner and outer envelope  membranes (OEMs) at the site of division. DYNAMIN-RELATED PROTEIN 5B (DRP5B/ ARC5), a cytosolic component of the chloroplast division machinery, is thought to function…

Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: Chen-Kun Jiang

Chen-Kun Jiang, first author of Insight into the Diversification and Evolution of R2R3-MYB Transcription Factors in Plants Current Position: Doctoral candidate, School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China Education: B.S., School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China Non-scientific…