Transcript, protein and metabolite dynamics in CAM-plant Agave ($)

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nplants2016178-f3

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) is a specialized form of photosynthesis that greatly increases water-use efficiency by taking up CO2 through stomata that are open at night (when evapotranspiration is low). Engineering plants that can switch to CAM during periods of drought is a key goal towards improving agricultural water efficiency, but how CAM plants achieve the unusual temporal activity patterns of metabolic enzymes and the corresponding metabolites has remained uncertain. Abraham et al. compared RNA, protein and metabolite temporal patterns between Agave (a CAM plant) and Arabidopsis (a C3 plant). Amongst their findings was a rescheduling of expression of core ABA signalling genes involved in stomatal functions. Nature Plants. 10.1111/tpj.13429

Construction of a male sterility system for hybrid rice production via nuclear male sterility gene

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malesterile

Traditionally, the production of hybrid maize seed involved the removal of male flowers to prevent self-fertilization of the female flowers. Rice produces bisexual flowers, so mechanical emasculation is not as amenable. Therefore, hybrid rice production requires that the female parent be genetically male sterile. There are several tactics to achieve this including conditional male sterility and cytoplasmic male sterility, but in every case the propagation of the male-sterile line is difficult. Chang et al used a nuclear-encoded male-sterility gene, OsNP1, to resolve this conflict. Into a osnp1-1 (male sterile) background, they introduced a transgene that 1) restores male fertility of the sporophyte, 2) makes pollen grains inviable, and 3) marks pollen carrying the transgene with red-fluorescent protein. Through self-pollination and seed sorting, this strategy produces both male-sterile plants for hybrid seed production and a fertile maintainer of male sterility. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA  10.1073/pnas.1613792113

Bacteria establish an aqueous living space in plants crucial for virulence ($)

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hewaterapoplast

Although it is widely accepted that high humidity has a strong influence on plant diseases of the phyllosphere (the above-ground portions of the plant), the molecular basis is not understood.  Xin et al. report that an important step in bacterial infection of the phyllosphere is a pathogen-driven humidity-dependent establishment of an aqueous intercellular space (apoplast). The authors found that only two plant functions, pattern-triggered immunity and water limitation in the apoplast, must be altered to enable non-pathogenic bacterial infection of host plants. Furthermore, the Pseudomonas syringae HopM1 effector stimulates the establishment of the aqueous apoplast and can transform non-pathogenic P. syringae strains into virulent pathogens under certain conditions. (Summary by Bhavishi Sheth) Nature 10.1038/nature20166

Stimulation of sugar import for antibacterial defense ($)

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sugarsensors

When villagers see the marauding hordes approaching, they secure their food sources. Similarly, when the cell-surface FLS2 receptor detects a bacterial pathogen, it (through its co-receptor BAK1) phosphorylates and stimulates the activity of a cell-surface sugar transporter (STP13), leading to the uptake into the plant cell of apoplastic sugars, thus depriving the pathogen of food and restricting the bacteria’s ability to deliver virulence factors. As summarized by Yamada et al., “Competition for sugar thus shapes host-pathogen interactions”. Science 10.1126/science/aah5692

Short, engaging videos about plant biology

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Videos are excellent ways to communicate about plant science. They can stimulate curiosity, explain a complicated idea, or make the invisible visible. Here is a curated list of some of our favorite short plant science videos.

Crash Course Biology: Plant Cells (10 min), Photosynthesis (13 min), The Sex Lives of Nonvascular Plants (10 min), Vascular Plants = Winning (12 min), The Plants and the Bees: Plant Reproduction (10 min)

It’s OK to Be Smart: Which Came First – Flowers or Bees? (5 min), Do Plants Think? (6 min),  Your Salad is Trying to Kill you (6 min), How Many Trees Are There? (6 min)

Veritasium: The Most Amazing Thing About Trees (7 min), Where Do Trees Get Their Mass From? (4 min), Inside the Svalbard Seed Vault (9 min)

Minute Earth: Why (nutrient) poor places are more diverse (3 min), The Secret Social Life of Plants (2 min), How do Trees Survive Winter? (3 min), Why are leaves green? (Part 1 and Part 2) (2 min each), The Real Reason Leaves Change Color In the Fall (2 min), Which Came First – The Rain or the Rainforest? (3 min), Who Are Flowers Trying To Seduce? (3 min), Orchids: The Masters Of Lying, Cheating & Stealing (4 min)

BBSRC: How plant science is rewriting our future stories (3 min),  How plants crawled onto the sea (2 min),  Plant power: Plants versus explosives (2 min), Plant power: Plants versus petrol (2 min), Plant power: Plants versus fish (2 min), Plant power: Plants versus floods (2 min), Plant power: Plants versus obesity (2 min), The foods of the future (2 min)

PBS NewsHour: To combat climate change, these scientists are turning CO2 into rock (2016, 9 min), The end of bananas as we know them? (2016, 5 min), Restoring San Francisco Bay’s wetlands one native plant at a time (2016, 6 min), The secret life of plants — and ‘Lab Girl’ author Hope Jahren,  (2016, 6 min), Medical marijuana research comes out of the shadows (2016, 9 min), How to grow an Ebola vaccine with a tobacco plant (2015, 6 min), California’s water-starved sequoias show signs of stress (2015, 6 min), Why growing lettuce in New York City is a growing business (2015, 8 min),  Is it nuts to grow almonds during a drought? (2015, 8 min), Why does almost half of America’s food go to waste? (2015, 9 min),  Italian olive trees are withering from this deadly bacteria (2015, 7 min), The phytoplankton that brought Earth to life (2014, 5 min),  Paradise found: A history of pineapple, sugar and seeds in Hawaii (2013, 3 min), Balancing Costa Rica’s Farming With Preservation with Nature (2013, 9 min),   California Works to Rescue Franciscan Manzanita Plant from Extinction (2011, 7 min)

Piffle: What is a GMO? (5 min)

Washington University St. Louis: Why don’t plants grow upside down? (3 min)

HHMI Interactive: Popped Secret: The Mysterious Origin of Corn (18 min)

SAPS: Animation – Transport of water and sugar in plants (4 min)

BBC Video library – Plants (several clips of various lengths)

Duc Phan Tran, University of Halle: Xanthomonas (computer animation of infection process) (6 min)

IntoBiology: From the cell to the planet in 90 seconds (1.5 min)

Borlaug Global Rust Initiative: The life cycle of wheat stem rust (7 min)

CIMMYT: Why invest in wheat research (5 min)

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh: Moving forward from ash dieback (3 min)

Kew Gardens: The forgotten home of coffee (6 min)

BBC Unplugged: Exploding seeds, slo mo (5 min)

Monash University: Feeding the future featuring Ros Gleadow (4 min)

University of Glasgow: Plant Science Investigation (PSI) (CSI spoof) (7 min)

Science magazine: Forest health in a changing world (2.5 min)

TED-Ed: How a single-celled organism almost wiped out life on Earth (Anusuya Willis, 4 min), Can plants talk to each other? (Richard Karban, 5 min), The simple story of photosynthesis and food (Amanda Ooten, 4 min)

Encyclopedia of Life: Invasive Species, stories of biodiversity on the move (7 min)

American Museum of Natural History: Green grow the salamanders (6.5 min)

Ramesh Boonratana: Mangrove forests and vivipary (2.5 min)

International Plant Nutrition Institute: The Role of 4R Nutrient Stewardship in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emission (5 min)

Biolapse: Carnivora Gardinum (carnivorous plant timelapse) (4 min)

Collections and channels

Chris Martine’s Plants are Cool too series – several videos (7 – 15 min)

Claire Hopkins Brilliant Botany video series – several videos (most < 5 min)

Many time-lapse videos can be found at Roger Hangarter’s Plants in Motion site (most < 3 min)

A now-closed plant video competition ChloroFilms features some great contributed videos

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): Dozens of videos in many languages – including Year of Pulses videos

IFAD: International Fund for Agricultural Development. Videos about farming challenges around the world

Smithsonian Channel: Plants

CABI videos: Many videos about invasive species and agronomic practices

AgriumInc: Fertilizer 101 (8 videos about fertilizer)

Video featuring songs

The Cambridge iGEM team: The Gibson asssembly song (4 min)

University of California Irvine: Chemists Know (Parody of Let it Go from Frozen) (4 min)

Musical Cells: Power Pack: The mitochondria rock song (4 min)

Biology Fortified Inc: Play it hard – Norman Borlaug 100 year tribute (3 min)

Kamoun Lab: Fifi the oomycete (2 min) and You can call me Al (for Albugo) (4 min)

Jonikas Lab ♫ Scientists Are Saving The World With Puppets And Algae ♫ (3.5 min)

HarvestPlus: Better nutrition from high-iron beans (5 min)

Kris Holmes: La Bloomba (2.5 min)

Science Rap Academy: They grow (2 min)

ZhengLabProductions: Bad Project (Lady Gaga Parody) (5 min)

Massague Lab: Don’t Stop Pipetting (5 min)

CohenfordMU: The Lab Song (Bruno Mars Parody) (3.5 min)

Weigelworld: Shake it off (parody) (4 min)

Weigel Style (Gangnam Style Parody) (5 min)

And many more science-y song parodies can be found on YouTube….

Happy 50th Birthday IR8!

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November of this year marked the 50th anniversary of the official release of IR8, the “miracle rice” that changed the world.

The rice, developed at IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) greatly increased yields compared to other varieties of the time, and is thought to have saved the lives millions of people who would otherwise have died of starvation in India and Southeast Asia.

Birthday celebrations recently took place in India and the Philippines, with speakers who contributed to this remarkable feat of plant breeding and insight.
The IRRI IR8 page has a timeline of the development of this miracle rice, photos of the birthday celebrations, and links to several articles that look at the social and scientific impacts of IR8. The BBC also has an article on the impact of IR8.

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Along with the development of dwarf varieties of wheat produced by Normal Borlaug and colleagues, the development of IR8 was one of the most important scientific accomplishments of the 20th century and has had a much greater impact on humanity than any other achievement, including the “war on cancer” and the “race to the moon“, two big-ticket scientific efforts that occurred concurrently.
These are great resources to share with your students, colleagues and children – let’s make the story of IR8 as widely known as the story of the moon landing.

Molecular basis for plant growth responses in shade and under competition for light ($)

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GraphicalAbstractV10

The wavelenghts of light perceived by a plant are information-rich, and plants integrate information from photoreceptors tuned to different wavelenghts to optimize their growth and development. Because plants absorb red light but not far-red light, a low ratio of red to far-red light indicates vegetative shading and promotes an elongation response; the ratio of red to far-red light is perceived by the phytochrome family of photoreceptors. De Wit et al. show that this shade-avoidance response is further stimulated by low levels of blue light, perceived by the cryptochrome family of photoreceptors, and they show that the molecular basis for this response augmentation is mediated by PIF transcription factors. In a linked paper, Goyal et al. show that phototropism (growth towards light), mediated by the phototropin family of blue-light receptors, is enhanced in shade, mediated by PIF effects on auxin synthesis. Curr. Biol. 10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.031  and 10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.001

Light suppresses ethylene response by direct interaction between phyB and EIN3

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phybet

A seedling in the dark produces ethylene, which in a dicot such as Arabidopsis leads to apical hook formation that protects the cotyledons from damage as the seedling pushes through the soil. The emergence of the seedling into the soil causes a rapid transition to photomorphogenesis and a suppression of the ethylene-mediated apical hook. Shi et al. show that perception of light by the photoreceptor phytochrome B (phyB) activates its interaction with the core ethylene signaling protein EIN3 and the promotion of its degradation, providing a molecular basis for the rapid suppression of the ethylene response by light. Devel. Cell 10.1016/j.devcel.2016.10.020

Auxin production in the endosperm drives seed coat development in Arabidopsis

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arabidopsauxinseedcoat

Seed vitality is critical for plants’ evolutionary survival and food production by economic crops such as rice, wheat, etc. Seed formation is preceded by well-coordinated events involving mainly fertilization, endosperm and seed coat formation in chronological order. How is the signal relayed from one event to another to make seeds? Is this signal maternally or paternally derived? What is the nature of this signal? Auxin has already been shown to be coupled to endosperm formation. In this paper, Figueiredo at al. present evidence that auxin is also involved in initiation of seed coat formation via a MADS-box transcription factor. (Summary by Nidhi Sharma) eLife. 10.7554/eLife.20542