Recent Posts

Phosphate uptake in maize

Wang, Yuan, et al. explore the regulatory connection between phosphorus nutrient homeostasis and vegetative-reproductive development in maize. Background: Phosphorus is an essential macronutrient for plant growth and development. To cope with phosphorus limitation, plants have evolved sophisticated…

A new regulatory module controls chlorophyll catabolism in bananas under high temperature

Wei et al. discover a new transcriptional and post-translational regulatory module, MaBAH1-MaMYB60, that regulates chlorophyll catabolism and green ripening in bananas under high temperature. By Wei Wei, Yingying Yang, Prakash Lakshmanan, Jianfei Kuang, Wangjin Lu, Xuequn Pang, Jianye Chen and Wei…

SPY catalyzes O-fucosylation of hundreds of proteins to promote sugar-dependent plant growth

Bi, Shrestha, Zhang et al. elucidate mechanisms of sugar-dependent growth regulation. Yang Bi, Zhi-Yong Wang Department of Plant Biology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA, USA Background: Extensive studies in animals have shown that the O-linked N-acetyl-glucosamine (O-GlcNAc)…

Out of the haze of DNA–protein crosslink repair

Dvořák Tomaštíková et al. study the role of SMC5/6 complex in repair of toxic DNA protein crosslinks in Arabidopsis. The Plant Cell (2023). By Pecinka Ales and Eva Dvořák Tomaštíková Background: Cellular DNA is constantly damaged by various internal and external factors that eventually…

Evolution of C4 photosynthesis in the Cleomaceae

Hoang et al. examine the Gynandropsis gynandra genome to provide insight into genome evolution and the emergence of C4 photosynthesis in a sister family to the Brassicaceae.    Background: The Cleomaceae is the sister family to the Brassicaceae (including the model species Arabidopsis and Brassica…

Salt stress disturbs sugar metabolism

Fu et al. examine how salt stress affects sugar metabolism via the reactive oxygen species hydrogen peroxide.  Zheng-Wei Fu (State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, College of Life Sciences, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China) Background: Soil salinization is a serious…

Enzymes at the chloroplast and ER work together for ER lipid metabolism

Nguyen and Nakamura reveal that a crucial reaction step of endoplasmic reticulum-localized glycerolipid biosynthesis mediated by phosphatidic acid phosphatase requires both chloroplast- and ER-localized enzymes, representing the importance of inter-organelle communication in membrane lipid homeostasis. By…

Role of the PUB31–SPIRAL1 module in hypocotyl elongation

Zhou et al. explore how microtubules and microtubule-associated proteins interact in hypocotyl elongation at high temperature.  By Dingding Zhou, Xiaohong Wang, Xiangfeng Wang, and Tonglin Mao China Agricultural University Background: During growth responses to high ambient temperature (thermomorphogenesis),…

Run Han: The Plant Cell First Author

Run Han, co-first author of  “SALT OVERLY SENSITIVE2 stabilizes phytochrome-interacting factors PIF4 and PIF5 to promote Arabidopsis shade avoidance” and “Phytochromes enhance SOS2-mediated PIF1 and PIF3 phosphorylation and degradation to promote Arabidopsis salt tolerance”  Current Position:…