Systematic characterization of gene function in the photosynthetic alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii The green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a useful model system to study photosynthetic organisms, as this single-celled species allows for more high-throughput methods than in multicellular plants,…

Review: Protein phosphorylation “toggle switch” for plant iron balance Protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation act as a switch regulating a multitude of protein properties, be it their activity, interaction with other proteins, stability, or even cellular localization. This review by Li…

Review: Fire-released seed dormancy - a global synthesis In 1991, Jon E. Keely wrote the first review about the role of fire as a dormancy-breaking cue in California's Mediterranean ecosystems. In this review, almost 30 years after Keely's work, Pausas and Lamont provide us with an updated and worldwide…

Special issue: Sex determination and sex chromosome evolution in land plants, Philosophical Transactions B At some point, most biology students learn the term “dioecy” (two houses), which refers to the separation of male and female function into different individuals, a characteristic that is…

Chloroplast protein import determines plant proteostasis and retrograde signaling 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…

Review: A rulebook for peptide control of legume–microbe endosymbiosis Symbiotic associations with bacterial or fungal partners enhance nutrient uptake for most plants, and recent years have uncovered the very sophisticated means by which these associations are established and controlled. Peptides…

Review. Auxin canalization: From speculative models toward molecular players The versatility of roles that the hormone auxin plays led Paque and Weijers to suggest a new meaning to the acronym IAA (originally- Indole Acetic Acid)- ‘Influences Almost Anything’. It is known that PIN-FORMED (PIN) auxin…

Carbon flux through photosynthesis and central carbon metabolism show distinct patterns between algae, C3, and C4 plants Photosynthesis is an attractive target for improving crop yields, and tailoring downstream photosynthesis-associated metabolism is a relatively unexplored path for achieving this.…