Category: The Plant Cell

Sun et al. found that Arabidopsis LUNAPARK, a protein evolutionarily conserved in eukaryotes, is an E3 ligase that promotes the degradation of ROOT HAIR DEFECTIVE3, an ER fusogen. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc. 18.00937 By Jiaqi Sun, Hugo Zheng, Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205…

Physical access to regulatory DNA, including cis-regulatory sequences found within proximal promoters and distal enhancer elements, is a vital property of chromatin.  In turn, their access is determined by nucleosome occupancy and post-translational modification of histone proteins. A continuum of chromatin…

Panda et al. use third-generation sequencing to examine the transcriptome of genomic regions that do not encode genes. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00115  By Kaushik Panda – Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, and R Keith Slotkin – Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and University…

ADP-RIBOSYLATION FACTOR (ARF) proteins play essential roles in vesicle trafficking by regulating the formation of membrane vesicles that move cargo throughout the cell. Their activity is controlled by specific guanine exchange factors (ARF-GEFs) that activate ARFs by catalyzing a GDP to GTP exchange…

Vivek K. Raxwal, first author of Nonsense mediated RNA decay factor UPF1 is critical for post-transcriptional and translational gene regulation in Arabidopsis Current Position: Postdoctoral researcher, Central European Institute of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic Education: PhD, Department of Botany,…

Gonzalez Solis et al. describe the metabolic, cellular, and physiological consequences of the complete loss of regulation of sphingolipid biosynthesis. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00015  By Ariadna Gonzalez Solis and Edgar B. Cahoon  Background: Glycosphingolipids are molecules…

Kaushik Panda, first author of Long-read cDNA Sequencing Enables a 'Gene-Like' Transcript Annotation of Transposable Elements Current Position: Postdoctoral Associate in the Slotkin Laboratory at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, Missouri, USA Education: Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics,…

Cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectin are the brick and mortar of the plant kingdom, and how they are laid has substantial impacts on plant morphology.  Plant cell shape is dictated by the interplay between turgor pressure and heterogeneity in cell wall composition, whereby localized cell wall loosening…