Recent Posts

Microalgae concentrate CO2 to ameliorate oxidative stress

Choi et al. report that the Chlamydomonas bZIP transcription factor BLZ8 induces the carbon-concentrating mechanism to provide an electron sink pathway, reducing reactive oxygen species production under oxidative stress conditions. Plant Cell. https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koab293 By Bae Young Choi,…

18S rRNA processing factors in maize

Wang et al. find an RNA 3’-terminal phosphate cyclase-like protein that participates in processing the 18S ribosomal RNA in maize. https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koac052 by Tao Wang and Jun Yang The National Engineering Laboratory of Crop Resistance Breeding, School of Life Sciences, Anhui Agricultural…

Lower oil content leads to wrinkled, immature seeds

Huang et al. elucidate the relationship between fatty acid biosynthesis and seed maturation in Arabidopsis. By Ruihua Huang and Shengchun Zhang  Background: Storage substances such as starch, protein, and oil in crop seeds are major sources of food for humans. These substances mainly accumulate…

COP1 promotes abscisic acid signaling in the dark

Peng et al. discover that COP1, a central repressor of seedling photomorphogenic development, positively regulates ABA signal transduction during Arabidopsis seedling growth in darkness by mediating ABA-induced ABI5 accumulation.  By Jing Peng and Jigang Li  Background: The phytohormone abscisic…

A Contextualized Catalog: Proteomic analyses of plant CCVs

Dahhan et al. explore the clathrin-coated vesicle proteome in Arabidopsis By Dana A. Dahhan and Sebastian Y. Bednarek, Dept. of Biochemistry, UW-Madison Background: Trafficking of vacuolar and plasma membrane proteins and other macromolecules is essential for plant development, nutrient uptake,…

Homospermidine oxidase catalyzes the formation of a bicyclic ring system as part of the chemical defense of plants

Zakaria and Stegemann et al. identify and characterize an enzyme involved in pyrrolizidine alkaloid biosynthesis in a member of the borage family. Mahmoud M. Zakariaa,b, Thomas Stegemanna,b, Dietrich Obera a Botanical Institute and Botanic Gardens, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany b Department…

Short-term memory of warm daytime in Arabidopsis

Murcia et al. discover how plants store information about daytime temperatures to control stem growth during the night. By Germán Murcia, Cristina Nieto, Romina Sellaro, Salomé Prat, and Jorge J. Casal Background: Plants increase their stature in response to warm temperatures by enhancing stem…

Flowers to Leaves: Bacterial Phyllogen Regulates Host Development

Kitazawa et al. identified a unique proteasome-utilizing mechanism of phyllogen, a bacterial effector protein produced by pathogenic phytoplasmas. Plant Cell. (2022) https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koac062 By Yugo Kitazawa and Kensaku Maejima, Department of Agricultural and Environmental Biology, Graduate…

Plant cells secrete diverse RNA species, including small RNAs, long noncoding RNAs and circular RNAs

Karimi et al. showed that Arabidopsis plants secrete numerous RNAs, which are associated with proteins and are located outside extracellular vesicles. Plant Cell. (2022) https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koac043 By: Hana Zand Karimi and Roger W. Innes, Indiana University Background: To prevent infection…