Category: Plant Science Research Weekly

In addition to its role as a nutrient and a developmental signal, nitrate regulates stress responses in plants. By homology to nitrate transporters previously identified in Arabidopsis as contributing to stress induced-nitrate allocation to roots (SINAR) and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), Guan et al.…

Rain contributes to plant disease.  Rain can contain high concentrations of pathogens (like Pseudomonas, Xanthomonas, Alternaria, Fusarium sp., etc.), and high humidity associated with rain antagonizes stomatal closure, leaving open entry points for some pathogens. Matsumura and colleagues have demonstrated…

Phytophthora are a group of oomycete pathogens that infect a wide range of plants and cause disease in many important crop species. Large scale mutant screens have previously been used to identify Arabidopsis thaliana mutants with enhanced resistance to P. parasitica. Here, Yang and colleagues investigate…

The study of seed microbiota is rapidly getting attention among plant scientists, given its role in modulating seed germination and plant fitness. Here, Simonin and colleagues synthesize the information from 63 studies and provide a thorough overview of this topic's current state of the art. The authors…

Recently, there has been a huge impetus to develop plants that can perform well under stress conditions and produce high yields so that an ever-increasing human population can be fed. Another point, less discussed but equally important, is the nutritional value that these crops can provide. Cantwell-Jones…

The neurological condition Huntington’s disease is caused by mutated versions of the Huntingtin gene that encode expanded stretches of polyglutamine repeats, resulting in protein aggregation. However, despite the widespread presence of polyglutamine repeat regions in plant proteomes, similar pathologies…

Synthetic biology aims to engineer and redesign components of natural organisms for useful purposes.  One of the most prolific areas of synthetic biology is based on the engineering of photoreactive proteins with signaling potential, such as photoreceptors. Natural photoreceptors consist of a prosthetic…

The vascular plant body composed of root and shoot is specified during embryogenesis, but most flowering plants can also develop additional root systems post-embryonically: lateral roots, as a response to wounding, or shoot-borne roots (“adventitious” roots, literally meaning “in the wrong place”).…