Recent Posts

Plant Science Research Weekly: February 4, 2021

Review: Age is NOT just a number Aging of plants is marked by the growth and differentiation of individual organs, as well as transitions of the whole plant through developmental phases: juvenile, vegetative adult, and reproductive phase. In their recent review, Rankenberg et al. discuss how abiotic…

Plant Science Research Weekly: January 29, 2021

Review: Selective redox signaling shapes plant-pathogen interactions Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) are often presented as something of enigmas. They are damaging by-products of metabolism and stress, but also intentionally produced as a signal and defense response…

Plant Science Research Weekly: January 22, 2021

Review: Molecular mechanisms involved in functional macroevolution of plant transcription factors Transcription factors (TFs) are very important actors through which evolution can operate. In every organism and system studied, starting with the seminal work of Jacob and Monod, they’ve been shown…

Plant Science Research Weekly: January 15, 2021

Horizontal genome transfer by cell-to-cell travel of whole organelles Textbooks tell us that eukaryotic cells acquired first mitochondria and later plastids through assimilation and retention of useful prokaryotes, but textbooks also imply that these were one-off occurrences that happened long ago.…

Plant Science Research Weekly: January 8, 2021

Review: Orphan crops and their wild relatives in the genomic era More than half of human calories come from rice, wheat, and corn, although many other cereals have been domesticated as food crops. Several of these “orphan” cereal crops and their wild relatives are being studied with the goal…

Plant Science Research Weekly - Top 20 hits of 2020

More then four years ago, we started a weekly column to highlight a few plant science articles each week. The series lauched with the name What We're Reading, but at some point was rebranded to Plant Science Research Weekly. From early on, we've drawn on the interests and talents of the Plantae Fellows…

Plant Science Research Weekly, December 18, 2020

Review: Thriving under stress: How plants balance growth and stress response What exactly is the growth/defense tradeoff? This review is an excellent place to ask. Zhang et al. review evidence that shows that it is much more than a competition for limiting resources – the plant actively responds…

Plant Science Research Weekly: December 11, 2020

Review: The mechanical feedback theory of leaf lamina formation The contribution of microtubule orientation to the direction of cell expansion is familiar to most; when microtubules wrap around the middle of a cell like a belt, the cell expands in the perpendicular direction to become longer. Recent…

Plant Science Research Weekly: December 4, 2020

Review: Organelles-nucleus-plasmodesmata signaling, and roles in plant physiology, metabolism and stress responses Plasmodesmata (PD) are pores that connect plant cells and allow the flow of small molecules and information but also viruses. This traffic is tightly regulated, in large part by the deposition…