Recent Posts

The ABCCs of Saffron Transportomics

Saffron spice is prized for its aroma, flavor, and color. The latter derives from highly concentrated apocarotenoid glycosides called crocins.  Accumulation of specialized metabolites like crocins often requires their sequestration in the vacuole to prevent cellular toxicity, feedback inhibition of…

A Plant Metabolon Efficiently Mass-produces Phytochemical Defenses

When plants are under attack, they activate defense programs including the biosynthesis of chemical defense compounds. The biosynthesis of these phytochemicals has to occur rapidly and represents a major sink of nutrients and amino acids. How plants optimize the mass production of chemical weapons remains…

Recognizing Plant Cell first authors: Tianhu Sun

Tianhu Sun, fist author of ORANGE Represses Chloroplast Biogenesis in Etiolated Arabidopsis Cotyledons via Interaction with TCP14 Current Position: Post-Doctoral Associate, Plant Breeding and Genetics, Cornell University Education: PhD in Biology and BS in Plant Biology from Nanjing University (Nanjing,…

The common symbiosis pathway: More common than we thought?

Cope et al. show how lipochitooligosaccharides produced by the mycorrhizal fungus Laccaria bicolor enhance colonization of Populus roots  Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00676 By Kevin R. Cope, University of Wisconsin–Madison (currently at S. Dakota State Univ.) and Jean-Michel Ané,…

Different partners, different roles!

You et al. show that LEUNIG_HOMOLOG Facilitates Jaresponses via interactions with the histone acetyltransferase HAC1 and the Mediator complex coactivator MED25.   Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00115 By Yanrong You and Chuanyou Li, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese…

The same but different: CoMoVa, an algorithm to identify functional variation in cis regulatory elements

Transcription factors (TFs) act through TF binding sites (TFBSs) to control the transcription of associated genes. TFBSs are short and degenerate sequences that are often depicted using a Position Weight Matrix, which contain invariant nucleotides that are crucial for TF binding and variable nucleotides…

Moving on Up: An MCTP-SNARE Complex Mediates Long-distance Florigen Transport

Flowering plants integrate endogenous and external cues to accurately time the transition from vegetative to reproductive growth (Cho et al., 2017). Many plants, including Arabidopsis thaliana, sense changes in day length (photoperiod) to transition to flowering as the season changes. Decades of careful…

The “Ins and Outs” of ER–Chloroplast Lipid Trafficking

Karki et al. revisit the long-standing question of how and where lipid trafficking occurs during galactolipid synthesis. They report evidence for metabolically distinct pools of phosphatidylcholine, suggesting an underlying spatial organization in the ER–chloroplast metabolic interactions. Plant Cell…

Developmental timing is everything (part II): gating of high temperature responses by the circadian clock

Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings exposed to heat stress (>42ºC) suffer high lethality rates unless exposed to milder heat (37ºC) beforehand. This pre-exposure distinguishes basal from acquired thermotolerance and has been extensively studied over the years. However, experimental conditions used to…