Wang et al. demonstrate that Arabidopsis SAUR17 promotes apical hook development and closed cotyledons in the dark by protecting the cell-expansion inhibitor PP2C-D1. The Plant Cell (2020) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00283   By Jiajun Wang, Ning Sun, Fangfang Zhang, Renbo Yu, Haodong Chen,…

Töpfer et al. created a combined leaf metabolism/gas exchange model to predict water saving and productivity in temperate climates. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00132 By Nadine Töpfera and R. George Ratcliffeb .....a Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Gatersleben,…

H. Li et al. identified and characterized a new genetic factor that controls grass-specific pollen wall pattern formation in rice. The Plant Cell (2020) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00551 By HuanJun Li, Yu-Jin Kim and Wanqi Liang Background: Pollen, the male gametophyte in flowering plants, is…

Arvid Herrmann, first author of KINESIN-12E regulates metaphase spindle flux and helps control spindle size in Arabidopsis Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Dr. Keiko Toriis Lab at University of Texas at Austin Education: PhD in 2018 at the ZMBP (Center for Plant Molecular Biology)…

A. Cristina Barragán, first author of Plant NLR Diversity: The Known Unknowns of pan-NLRomes Current Position: PhD Student, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen Germany Education: MSc in Biology, University of Tübingen Non-scientific Interests: podcasts, travelling, music,…

“Deep learning” is a buzz term that seems to be cropping up in plant biology research these days. Originally reserved, perhaps, for computer nerds rather than us biology ones, deep learning is a type of machine learning used in the field of artificial intelligence. Modeled on the human brain, deep…

Fang and Zhang et al. show that SUMOylation and deSUMOylation regulate the stability of a transcription factor, thereby influencing aluminum resistance in Arabidopsis. Descriptive paragraph. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00687 Background: Aluminum (Al) is a primary constraint for crop…

Wang et al. uncover the role of Laccase8 from the model system Cleome hassleriana in initiating C-lignin polymerization. The Plant Cell (2020) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00598   By Xin Wanga,b,, Chunliu Zhuoa,c, and Richard A. Dixona aUniversity of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #311428,…