Category: The Plant Cell: In a Nutshell

Cell walls are complex mixtures of cellulose microfibrils, proteins and other materials. Their mechanical properties can be measured and modeled, but it is not always simple to translate these measurements to changes at the molecular level. Zhang et al. used atomic force microscopy to provide an unprecedented…

Zhou et al. demonstrate that phosphatidylserine regulates Rab GTPase-mediated vesicle trafficking and polar growth of pollen tubes. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00844 Background: Pollen tube growth is an indispensable event during double fertilization in flowering plants. This peculiar…

In a systematic multi-lab study, Arora et al. apply a variety of proximity-dependent biotin labelling approaches using several different plant systems and bait proteins, to demonstrate its wide applicability for the plant community. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00235. Background: Protein-protein…

Yalin Liu, Handong Su, Jing Zhang, et al. explore centromere birth and death by inducing rearrangements via pollen irradiation in maize. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00389 Background: The centromere is one of the most important components of chromosomes. Every normal chromosome has one…

Steinbeck et al. investigate in vivo NAD redox dynamics in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00241 By Janina Steinbeck and Markus Schwarzländer Background: All organisms rely on their cellular metabolism to live, develop, grow, and procreate. Metabolism provides the energy,…

Chen et al. uncover a strategy used by a DNA geminivirus to exploit the host machinery in order to inhibit methylation-mediated defense responses when establishing infection. The Plant Cell (2020) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00249.  Background: Geminiviruses belong to one of the largest and most…

Iwatate et al. demonstrate that SNAP-tag technology can be used to label plant cell proteins. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00439 By Ryu J. Iwatatea,b, Akira Yoshinaria, Noriyoshi Yagia, Wolf B. Frommera,c, and Masayoshi Nakamuraa a Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (WPI-ITbM),…

López-Hernández et al. reveal that arabinogalactans function in calcium signaling from outside to inside the cell. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00027 Federico López Hernández and Paul Dupree University of Cambridge, Department of Biochemistry, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge,…

Rodrigues et al. found that the source and sink identities of sugar beet shoots vs. taproots are switched upon vernalization (chilling) due to a cold-induced reversal of the phloem stream. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00072 By Cristina Martins Rodriguesa, Christina Müdsamb and Benjamin…