Category: The Plant Cell

Folates are soluble B9 vitamins with essential functions in all kingdoms of life—both in organisms that produce these vitamins de novo (fungi, plants, and most microorganisms) and in those that do not (animals). As essential cofactors in one-carbon transfers, different folate species mediate the biosynthesis…

Sabeeha Merchant, Editor-in-Chief of The Plant Cell, recently spent a week in China meeting with Chinese scientists at SIPPE  (Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology) and FAFU (Fujian Agriculturlal and Forstry University) to learn about their research. She emphasized the power of technology…

Jamie Waese, featured first author of ePlant: Visualizing and Exploring Multiple Levels of Data for Hypothesis Generation in Plant Biology Current Position: Senior Manager, Data Visualization Lab, Department of Enterprise Advanced Analytics, TD Bank, Toronto, Canada. Education: PhD (2017) in Data…

James K. McCarthy, featured first author of Nitrate Reductase Knockout Uncouples Nitrate Transport from Nitrate Assimilation and Drives Repartitioning of Carbon Flux in a Model Pennate Diatom Current Position: Research Fellow, J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, CA. Education: Ph. D. Microbiology…

Tenreira et al. find a gene responsible for the differentiation of the stolon in strawberry. The Plant Cell 2017. https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.16.00949 Asexual reproduction produces offspring that are genetically identical to the parents. This process takes many forms in flowering plants, including…

Liu et al. focus on transcriptional regulation of PHR1 expression. The Plant Cell 2017. https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00268 Phosphorus (P) is an essential micronutrient for plant growth, development, and metabolism. Phosphate (Pi), the major form of P used by plants, is highly immobile in most soils,…

Su et al. look at chromatin modifications that affect flowering. The Plant Cell 2017. https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00266 Plants, unlike animals, begin their lives as seeds that – in flowering plants – develop from flowers. This depends upon proper regulation of flowering time, to ensure pollination,…

Wear et al. examine replication programs in plants. The Plant Cell 2017. https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00037 By William Thompson, Emily Wear, and Linda Hanley-Bowdoin DNA replication is fundamental to all life, as it is the process by which genetic material is duplicated so it can be passed from…