Special Issue of J. Exp. Bot. The quiescent center and root apical meristem: Organization and function As the name suggests, the root quiescent center (QC) is an area at the root tip of low cell-division activity. This special issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany provides a comprehensive overview…

Review: 3D electron microscopy for imaging organelles in plants and algae Have you noticed that the quality and resolution of cell images has been getting better and better? Weiner et al. review the recent advances in 3D electron microscopy (EM) technologies that have provided these strikingly beautiful…

Review: Fifteen compelling open questions in plant cell biology As part of The Plant Cell’s upcoming celebration of plant cell biology, Roeder et al. write about fifteen of the “open questions” in the field. This, and the other reviews that make up the focus issue, provide valuable insights…

Review: Root plasticity under abiotic stress For millennia, humans have selected desirable traits in the above-ground part of plants, but below-ground traits have been only indirectly selected. Thus, roots are ripe for optimization, and hold particular promise in efforts to make crops more resilient…

Review: Alternative splicing as conserved mechanism to regulate CDPKs? ($) Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs/CPKs) are an interesting class of proteins present in plants, algae and some protists that are thought to “sense” and “respond” to spikes in intracellular Ca2+ signaling events.…

A Central Role for Genetics in Plant Biology Plant biology as a field of study encompasses a rich plethora of subjects, some of which themselves are their own fields. Maarten Koornneef, in this memoir-style article, describes how genetics in particular shaped his career that saw the rise of Arabidopsis…

Review: Convergent evolution of gene regulatory networks underlying plant adaptations The transition from aquatic to terrestrial habitats exposed plants to low water availability, high light, radiation, and other environmental challenges. To overcome these challenges, plants developed morpho-physiological…

Review. Message in a Bubble: Shuttling small RNAs and proteins between cells and interacting organisms using extracellular vesicles Small RNAs have big effects and can serve to shut down or silence gene expression. Recently, studies have found that small RNAs can contribute to plant defense beyond…