Plant Science Research Weekly: July 26th
Blog, WWR Full PostReview: Sulfated plant peptide hormones
It’s hard to believe that when I was a student we were taught that “plants don’t have peptide hormones”. Since then we’ve discovered many diverse families of plant peptide hormones (see the Teaching Tool on peptide hormones for an excellent overview).…
Plant Science Research Weekly: July 19th
Blog, WWR Full PostReview: Formal description of plant morphogenesis ($)
In recent years, a number of tools have been developed to describe and model plant morphogenesis, and these approaches have greatly informed our understanding of the molecular processes that underpin the control of growth. This excellent review…
Plant Science Research Weekly: July 12th
Blog, WWR Full PostReview: Synthetic biology in photosynthetic microbes: present and future
Photosynthetic microbes are emerging models for synthetic biology applications since they possess relatively simple physiology and cellular organization, fast growth in liquid culture, and facile genetic manipulation. In this…
Plant Science Research Weekly: July 5th
WWR Full PostCritical residues for carotenoid biosynthesis by phytoene synthase
Carotenoids are diverse structures that contribute to photosynthetic light harvesting and serve as pigments, photoprotectants, and precursors for vitamin A and signalling molecules. Phytoene synthase is the first committed enzyme…
Plant Science Research Weekly: June 28
WWR Full PostReview: A series of fortunate events: Introducing Chlamydomonas as a reference organism
Clamydomonas reinhardtii is the most thoroughly characterized unicellular alga. Like yeast, it is a single-celled eukaryotic organism that is easy to culture, and it lives predominantly in its haploid form but…
Plant Science Research Weekly: June 21st
WWR Full PostGuest editor: Magdalena Julkowska
Magda is a PostDoc at King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST, Saudi Arabia) working with Prof. Mark Tester. Her main interests are (1) salt-induced changes in the root-to-shoot ratio in Arabidopsis, (2) study the expression patterns in plants with…
Plant Science Research Weekly: June 14th
WWR Full PostReview: N-degron pathway-mediated proteostasis in stress physiology
The rate of most biological processes is ultimately determined by protein activity levels, which of course are determined by rate of degradation or inactivation as well as production. Dissmeyer reviews the Cys/Arg branch of…
Plant Science Research Weekly: June 7th
WWR Full PostReview: Source–sink regulation in crops under water deficit ($)
Plants have a remarkable ability to coordinate cellular activities across huge distances, yet we have only a basic understanding of how these remote activities are coordinated. A review by Rodrigues et al. summarizes what we know about…
Plant Science Research Weekly: May 31st
WWR Full PostReview: Integration of sulfate assimilation with C and N metabolism in transition from C3 to C4 photosynthesis
“Cysteine (HO2CCH(NH2)CH2SH) synthesis is the converging point of the three major pathways of primary metabolism: carbon, nitrate, and sulfate assimilation.” These metabolic connections…