Research Blog

Plants can reach impressive heights, thanks to the mechanical stability provided by the cell walls. The required strength is ensured by coordination of cell wall deposition and cell expansion. Plant-specific calpain (DEK1) regulates axial stem growth, as lines overexpressing the calpain domain develop…

As a tree grows in height, increasing the length of the transport pathway, the hydraulic resistance of the vascular tissues should increase. It is not clear if trees only rely on passive transport mechanisms (no active loading of sugars) to move carbohydrates from shoots to roots. To answer this question,…

Plants lack a developmentally defined germline and gametes originate only late during plant development. This allows mutations acquired during the vegetative growth (somatic mutations) to be transmitted to the reproductive organs. The accumulation of mutations is relatively low in annual plants such…

Plants are highly plastic and can modulate their growth and development to better respond to abiotic and biotic surroundings. Among the molecules involved in the adaptation to the environment, a crucial role is played by small secreted peptides (SSPs). In their paper, integrating 144 transcriptomic experiments,…

NLR (Nucleotide-binding site leucine-rich repeat resistance) genes help plants recognize pathogens. Munch et al. looked at expression pattern data of 1,235 NLRs from nine plant species. The distribution of NLR gene expression between shoot and root is relatively constant within a species, and for most…

Rust fungi represent an important group of plant pathogens, many of which have heteroecious lifestyles (meaning that they require two alternate hosts). However, the molecular mechanisms used by these pathogens for suppression and colonization of multiple hosts are poorly understood.  Lorrain et al.…

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are membrane-released structures that play a role in cell-to-cell communication. These vesicles in plants have been poorly studied although they are predicted to have a role in defense upon pathogen infection. Regente et al. have characterized EVs from sunflower by transmission…

Point of View: A transatlantic perspective on 20 emerging issues in biological engineering studies “Horizon scanning” describes the process of trying to rationally predict the future.  Wintle et al. describe the results from a horizon-scanning exercise to identify emerging issues in biological…