Divide and Conquer: Introducing a Novel Player in Cell Plate Formation

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IN BRIEF by Kathleen L. Farquharson [email protected]

Polysaccharide-rich cell walls are a distinguishing feature of plants that influence many aspects of growth and development, including cell division. Whereas contractile rings pinch dividing cells into two daughter cells in other eukaryotes, newly built cell walls partition the products of plant cell division. The phragmoplast guides construction of a cell plate at the center of the division plane, which expands outward from the cell center until it fuses with the parental cell wall, completely separating the daughter cells. As cellulose is the major load-bearing component of cell walls, cellulose synthase (CESA) and cellulose synthase-like (CSL) enzymes, which have a high degree of sequence identity with CESA and are thought to catalyze the biosynthesis of cell wall polysaccharides, are expected to be involved in the construction of new cell walls.

To identify genes that are specifically required for de novo cell wall synthesis in dividing cells, Gu et al. (2016) mined transcriptional profiles of an Arabidopsis thaliana stomatal lineage. They found that three CSLD genes, CSLD2, 3, and 5, were highly expressed in early stage stomatal cells. In contrast to CSLD2 and 3, CSLD5 was strongly expressed in rapidly dividing cell populations and weakly expressed in expanding and differentiating cells. Consistent with a role in cell division, chromatin immunoprecipitation indicated that CSLD5 is a direct target of SPEECHLESS (SPCH), a master transcriptional regulator of divisions during stomatal development (Lau et al., 2014). Mutant csld5 plants exhibited defects in growth and development. In addition to having reduced stature and shorter roots and smaller rosettes than wild-type plants (as reported in Bernal et al., 2007; Yin et al., 2011), the csld5 mutant displayed aberrant stomatal clusters and cell wall stubs in both aerial and root tissues. Although csld2 and 3 did not exhibit these defects, loss of either CSLD2 or 3 enhanced the csld5 phenotype, indicating functional redundancy among CSLD genes.

Fluorescently tagged CSLD2, 3, and 5 all localized to the cell plates of dividing cells. However, whereas CSLD2 and CSLD3 also accumulated in punctate structures of nondividing cells, CSLD5 was preferentially associated with actively dividing cells. A comparison of the distribution of fluorescently tagged CSLD5 with that of fluorescently tagged CYCB1:1 (a cyclin) and CESA3 and KNOLLE (two other cell plate-localized proteins) showed that CSLD5 started to accumulate during early mitosis and vanished soon after completion of cytokinesis (see figure). The authors demonstrated that the rapid loss of CSLD5 was due to ubiquitination by the anaphase-promoting complex (APC).

This work establishes CSLD5 as a cell cycle-regulated enzyme that deposits cell wall material in expanding cell plates during cytokinesis. The next challenge is to identify which compound CSLD5 adds to the cell plate and to pinpoint the individual contributions of CSLD proteins and other cell plate-localized enzymes to the construction of sturdy walls during plant cell division.

picture11REFERENCES

Bernal, A.J., Jensen, J.K., Harholt, J., Sørensen, S., Moller, I., Blaukopf, C., Johansen, B., de Lotto, R., Pauly, M., Scheller, H.V., Willats, W.G.T. (2007). Disruption of ATCSLD5 results in reduced growth, reduced xylan and homogalacturonan synthase activity and altered xylan occurrence in Arabidopsis. Plant J. 52: 791–802.

Gu, F., Bringmann, M., Combs, J., Yang, J., Bergmann, D., Nielsen, E. (2016). Arabidopsis CSLD5 functions in cell plate formation in a cell cycle-dependent manner. Plant Cell 28: 1722–1737.

Lau, O.S., Davies, K.A., Chang, J., Adrian, J., Rowe, M.H., Ballenger, C.E., Bergmann, D.C. (2014). Direct roles of SPEECHLESS in the specification of stomatal self-renewing cells. Science 345: 1605–1609.

Yin, L., Verhertbruggen, Y., Oikawa, A., Manisseri, C., Knierim, B., Prak, L., Jensen, J.K., Knox, J.P., Auer, M., Willats, W.G.T., Scheller, H.V. (2011). The cooperative activities of CSLD2, CSLD3, and CSLD5 are required for normal Arabidopsis development. Mol. Plant 4: 1024–1037.

Invisible No Longer: Peptidoglycan in Moss Chloroplasts

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IN BRIEF by Nancy Hofmann [email protected]

Most bacteria have a peptidoglycan layer between the inner and outer membranes (reviewed in Typas et al., 2012). The cyanobacterial endosymbiont that gave rise to plastids would have contained such a peptidoglycan wall including d-amino acids. Indeed, peptidoglycan can be visualized by electron microscopy in the envelope of cyanelles, also known as muroplasts—the plastids of glaucophytes. However, peptidoglycan has not been observed in the envelopes of plastids of other lineages, suggesting that it has been lost in the course of plastid evolution (reviewed in Takano and Takechi, 2010). Surprisingly, though, antibiotics that target peptidoglycan biosynthesis cause plastid phenotypes in species that do not have a visible peptidoglycan layer in electron micrographs. For instance, d-cycloserine induces macrochloroplasts in the moss Physcomitrella patens. Furthermore, some algae and plants, including P. patens, have the full complement of genes for peptidoglycan biosynthesis. Disruption of such Mur genes leads to macrochloroplast formation in P. patens. This apparent connection between peptidoglycan and chloroplast division prompted Hirano et al. (2016) to revisit the question of whether land plant plastids contain a peptidoglycan layer.

d-Cycloserine inhibits d-Ala:d-Ala ligases (DDLs), which produce d-Ala-d-Ala (DA-DA) during peptidoglycan biosynthesis in bacteria. Based on this, Hirano et al. characterized DDL in P. patens, showing that it is targeted to the chloroplast and that knockout ddl mutants have macrochloroplasts similar to those induced by d-cycloserine. The moss ddl mutants had increased levels of d-Ala, consistent with accumulation of the substrate in the absence of DDL activity. Importantly, exogenous DA-DA could partially rescue the macrochloroplast phenotype of the mutants. These data again pointed to the likely importance of peptidoglycan in plastid division in moss.

Accordingly, Hirano et al. made a renewed attempt to visualize peptidoglycan in a land plant. They used a metabolic labeling technique that recently revealed peptidoglycan in Chlamydia, which had been so recalcitrant to peptidoglycan visualization that the phenomenon was termed the Chlamydial anomaly (Liechti et al., 2014). Hirano and coworkers fed the P. patens ddl mutant EDA-DA, an analog of DA-DA that was able to rescue the chloroplast phenotype as well as DA-DA. After the cells were fixed, the authors used click chemistry to link an azide-modified Alexa Fluor to the alkyne functional group of EDA-DA. Excitingly, this approach revealed a layer surrounding each chloroplast (see figure) and forming at the division plane of dividing chloroplasts.

This Breakthrough Report from Hirano et al. establishes that peptidoglycan is present in the plastids of at least some land plants and is needed for chloroplast division in P. patens. The role of peptidoglycan in chloroplast division does not appear to be conserved in Arabidopsis thaliana, which does not have all of the genes for peptidoglycan biosynthesis. Thus, it remains likely that peptidoglycan has been lost, likely multiple times, over the course of evolution of plastid-containing lineages. However, this work emphasizes that the lack of a visible peptidoglycan layer in electron micrographs cannot be taken to reflect the absence of peptidoglycan in vivo.

 picture8
REFERENCES

Hirano, T., Tanidokoro, K., Shimizu, Y., Kawarabayasi, Y., Ohshima, T., Sato, M., Tadano, S., Ishikawa, H., Takio, S., Takechi, K., Takano, H. (2016). Moss chloroplasts are surrounded by a peptidoglycan wall containing d-amino acids. Plant Cell 28: 1521–1532.

Liechti, G.W., Kuru, E., Hall, E., Kalinda, A., Brun, Y.V., VanNieuwenhze, M., Maurelli, A.T. (2014). A new metabolic cell-wall labelling method reveals peptidoglycan in Chlamydia trachomatis. Nature 506: 507–510.

Takano, H., Takechi, K. (2010). Plastid peptidoglycan. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1800: 144–151.

Typas, A., Banzhaf, M., Gross, C.A., Vollmer, W. (2012). From the regulation of peptidoglycan synthesis to bacterial growth and morphology. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 10: 123–136.

Review: Biotechnology and synthetic biology approaches for metabolic engineering of bioenergy crops

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shihShih et al. review how the many and diverse tools of plant synthetic biology can be applied towards bioenergy crops, focusing on traits related to lignocellulose, oil, and soluble sugars. Tools include those that edit genes, those that alter protein activities, and those that enable gene stacking in crop plants. Examples of successful manipulation of various metabolic pathways in bioenergy crops are provided, and areas where further tools and research are needed are highlighted. Plant J. 10.1111/tpj.13176

Shape-Shifters: How Strigolactone Signaling Helps Shape the Shoot

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IN BRIEF by Jennifer Lockhart [email protected]

When a deer eats the primary shoot of a plant, this can activate a nearby dormant axillary bud, causing it to form a secondary shoot. Genetic and environmental factors also affect shoot architecture, which strongly influences crop productivity. Changes in shoot architecture are mediated by long-distance signals, including phytohormones. For example, strigolactones (SLs) help regulate shoot branching, as well as branching angle, plant height, stem thickness, and leaf blade elongation (reviewed in Borghi et al., 2016). In general, little is known about how downstream targets of SLs regulate shoot architecture, including whether different responses occur via different pathways.

A bit more is known about the proximal events in SL signaling. The SL receptor, the α/β-fold hydrolase DWARF14 (D14), appears to have an SL-dependent association with the F-box protein MAX2, likely forming part of a ubiquitin ligase complex that functions in SL signaling using a classic tactic: regulating target protein degradation by the 26S proteasome. The main (and perhaps only) proteolytic targets of SL signaling are SUPPRESSOR OF MORE AXILLARY GROWTH2-LIKE (SMXL) family members, such as SMXL7 in Arabidopsis thaliana. SMXL proteins contain evolutionarily conserved ETHYLENE-RESPONSE FACTOR Amphiphilic Repression (EAR) motifs, which might allow them to interact with their targets, although the underlying mechanism is unclear (reviewed in Bennett and Leyser, 2014).

Using a powerful mechanistic approach, Liang et al. (2016) provide direct, in planta evidence in support of this D14-mediated SL signaling pathway. First, they assessed the subcellular localization of SMXL7 by fusing it to a fluorescent reporter gene and expressing it in Nicotiana benthamiana epidermal cells, finding that it strongly localized to the nucleus. The nuclear localization signal in SMXL7 is required for its function; transforming smxl max2 mutants with wild-type SMXL7, but not a version lacking this signal, restored their branching patterns to wild-type levels. Similar analyses revealed that both D14 and MAX2 primarily localize to the nucleus. The interactions between these components were then explored in N. benthamiana leaf epidermal cells harboring a suite of reporter-protein constructs using Förster resonance energy transfer with fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy. This technique can reveal whether two fluorophores are within several nanometers of each other, a distance sufficiently close for molecular interactions to occur. SMXL7 localized to speckles in the nucleus, and D14 appeared to be recruited to these speckles in response to treatment with a synthetic SL analog. This interaction led to the degradation of SMXL7, as predicted by the model. Although MAX2 interacted with D14 as well, cotransfection of these proteins did not lead to SMXL7 degradation. SMXL7 appears to interact only indirectly with MAX2, with D14 acting as a bridge to bring these proteins together.

The authors then explored the downstream effects of D14-mediated SL signaling on shoot architecture by expressing SMXL7 at various levels in Arabidopsis. Overexpressing SMXL7 in wild-type plants had only minor effects on shoot architecture, whereas mutants deficient in MAX2-induced degradation of SMXL7 showed dose-dependent changes in shoot architecture in response to SMXL7 overexpression (see figure). Wild-type plants expressing stabilized SMXL7 resembled SL-deficient or SL-signaling mutants, confirming the importance of SMXL7 degradation in shoot architecture. Interestingly, transforming the plants with SMXL7 variants with a modified or deleted EAR motif had different effects on different SL-regulated shoot phenotypes. For example, in the wild-type background, removing the EAR motif had little effect on leaf morphology and branch angle, whereas branch number and plant height were highly sensitive to EAR mutation. Therefore, rather than magic spells, SMXLs might use multiple pathways to regulate different shoot architectural traits, a notion ripe for further exploration.

picture9REFERENCES

Bennett, T., Leyser, O. (2014). Strigolactone signalling: standing on the shoulders of DWARFs. Curr. Opin. Plant Biol. 22: 7–13.

Borghi, L., Liu, G.-W., Emonet, A., Kretzschmar, T., Martinoia, E. (2016). The importance of strigolactone transport regulation for symbiotic signaling and shoot branching. Planta 243: 1351–1360.

Liang, Y., Ward, S., Li, P., Bennett, T., Leyser, O. (2016). SMAX1-LIKE7 signals from the nucleus to regulate shoot development in Arabidopsis via partially EAR motif-independent mechanisms. Plant Cell 28: 1581–1601.

Thinking Outside the Plant: Exploring Phloem Development Using VISUAL

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IN BRIEF by Jennifer Lockhart  [email protected]

Picture5Investigating how plants grow and develop often requires a bit of creativity. For example, deep within the plant, the vascular cambium, a layer of embryonic, highly cytoplasmic cells, gives rise to xylem and phloem tissue, which must expand throughout the plant’s lifetime. Water and nutrients primarily flow through the xylem, whereas photosynthate and signaling molecules travel through the phloem. While anatomical and labeling studies have shed light on the sequential development of vascular tissue, this process is notoriously difficult to track due to the limited accessibility of the plant vasculature. However, under the proper conditions, various cells can be coaxed into producing vascular cells in culture, which greatly facilitates their investigation. Such analyses have revealed many key factors that regulate the differentiation of xylem cells from vascular cambium cells (reviewed in Růžička et al., 2015). However, unlike xylem cells, which undergo marked changes during development, in vitro-produced phloem cells are difficult to distinguish from other cell types without the use of phloem-specific markers.

Kondo et al. (2016) developed a powerful system for analyzing phloem differentiation called VISUAL (Vascular Cell Induction Culture System Using Arabidopsis Leaves). In this system, mesophyll cells from Arabidopsis thaliana leaf discs or cotyledons are induced to form procambial cells, which then develop into xylem (Kondo et al., 2015) or phloem cells. To unlock the capacity of mesophyll cells to form vascular cells in vitro, including sieve element (SE)-like phloem cells and tracheary elements (xylem), the cells are treated with bikinin, an inhibitor of the kinase GSK3, which normally suppresses vascular tissue differentiation. Induction with bikinin triggers the formation of numerous phloem precursor cells and differentiating SEs, as revealed by the increased expression of the phloem markers APLpro:GUS (β-glucuronidase gene driven by the ALTERED PHLOEM DEVELOPMENT promoter; see figure) and SEOR1pro:SEOR1-YFP (yellow fluorescent protein gene driven by the SIEVE ELEMENT OCCLUSION-RELATED1 promoter), respectively. DNA inhibitor analysis indicated that cell division is required prior to phloem cell differentiation in VISUAL. In vitro and in vivo phloem cell differentiation appear to share several crucial steps, such as the formation of SE reticulum, bundles of P-protein filaments, and thick primary cell walls, as well as an enucleation-like event. The induced phloem cells mainly consist of SEs but not companion cells, as shown by microarray analysis. The authors used flow cytometry to isolate phloem SEs expressing SEOR1pro:SEOR1-YFP, finding that bikinin-induced mesophyll cells gave rise to 300 times more YFP-positive cells than uninduced mesophyll cells. In addition, phloem-specific genes were highly expressed in YFP-positive cells, whereas xylem-specific genes were highly expressed in YFP-negative cells.

The authors then took advantage of VISUAL to investigate phloem SE development in an apl mutant, which is embryo lethal, since APL is a crucial transcription factor. Microarray analysis revealed that APL preferentially upregulates many phloem-specific genes in VISUAL, especially those functioning during later SE development. Next, three different sets of VISUAL transcriptome data, including time-course, SEOR1 cell-sorting, and apl mutant data, were used to construct networks of genes related to SE-like cell differentiation. This analysis identified a transcription factor gene, NAC020, that appears to be expressed upstream of APL. Indeed, NAC020 was expressed in apl, confirming its function upstream of APL. Both overexpression and targeted repression of NAC020 led to reduced APL expression, as well as partially inhibited SE differentiation. These findings point to the importance of NAC020 in early phloem development, and they hint at the great potential of using VISUAL to explore phloem development outside the plant.

REFERENCES

Kondo, Y., Fujita, T., Sugiyama, M., Fukuda, H. (2015). A novel system for xylem cell differentiation in Arabidopsis thaliana. Mol. Plant 8: 612–621.

Kondo, Y., Nurani, A.M., Saito, C., Ichihashi, Y., Saito, M., Yamazaki, K., Mitsuda, N., Ohme-Takagi, M., Fukuda, H. (2016). Vascular cell induction culture system using Arabidopsis leaves (VISUAL) reveals the sequential differentiation of sieve element-like cells. Plant Cell 28: 1250–1262.

Růžička, K., Ursache, R., Hejátko, J., Helariutta, Y. (2015). Xylem development – from the cradle to the grave. New Phytol. 207: 519–535.

Career building: Where do you want to go and how will you get there?

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Last month I spent a few days at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam, where I gave a talk about career building for early career researchers. I’ve shared the slides and here I summarize the take-home messages and links.

Chance favors the prepared mindCareersTalkPotsdam

By now you’ve heard that there are more post-docs than professorships (see The PhD Factory). Statistically, early-career researchers are more likely to move into a non-tenure track academic position, position in industry or non-academic job than to land a tenure-track position. How do you find your best career path and navigate it successfully?

Here, I provide some career-planning suggestions, focusing on broadening your experience and broadening your footprint.

Broadening your experience / developing your transferable skills

Take advantage of opportunities to develop your skills beyond the bench, but at the same time, be sure to consider how these opportunities will strengthen your CV. Before you say “yes” to a request for your time, make sure you know how it will appear on your CV. For example, if you help out at a Fascination of Plants Day event, don’t write “Helped out at public event”, instead write “Raised funds, managed volunteers, assessed risk, assessed impact, reported outcomes” etc. Whenever possible, get a title for your position, such as “Coordinator of volunteers” or “Resources manager”.

Volunteering and mentoring opportunities abound, including:

Volunteer at a Fascination of Plants Day event
Mentor an iGEM team
Mentor students through PlantingScience.org
Mentor an undergraduate researcher
Volunteer with ASPB at an outreach event such as the AAAS Family Science Days, NSTA, NABT, the US Science and Engineering Festival, or even the White House Easter Egg Roll, or volunteer as an ASPB ambassador.

You can also develop transferable skills through science communication. Several established bloggers are happy to have a guest post, or you can start your own blog; see more on blogging here. Science communication doesn’t have to mean writing; you can communicate by creating podcasts, videos, photography, illustrations and infographics too.

Broadening your network

Many job seekers find their jobs through word-of-mouth and informal networking, so it stands to reason that the bigger yourPicture4 network, the more opportunities you’ll learn about. Some networks just happen, like the network that spans your lab and department. Broadening your networks requires effort on your part. As an example, here’s an interesting article about managing your mentoring network.

These days, most networking happens online. If you still think that social media is only about pop stars, selfies, and cat videos, think again. I recommend Twitter as an excellent source for networking opportunities. Not only will you get to listen in to what the leaders of the field are talking about, you’ll also see plenty of job ads on Twitter.

Like it or not, you have a digital profile, and managing it is an important part of your job-hunting strategy. Many journals are requiring ORCIDs for their authors, and it’s a painless process to sign up for one. A Google Scholar profile is often a top hit when searching for a scientist, so be sure yours is accurate and up-to-date (set up your profile by clicking on My Citations at the top of the Google Scholar page). LinkedIn and ResearchGate are good networking sites also. Some institutions allow postdocs and graduate students to have a profile page (if yours doesn’t, you can ask them to change their policy), and the new Plantae digital ecosystem for plant science is a great place to customize your profile and meet other plant scientists.

Professional societies like ASPB are excellent for networking, getting advice about careers, finding volunteer opportunities, and as an ASPB member you and can apply for travel awards to the annual meeting. Larger meetings like PlantBio16 and SEB often have workshops designed to help postdocs and graduate students learn new skills and prepare for the job hunt.

How do you decide which is the best career path for you?

First, you need to think about all the different things you can do with your PhD. See Klaue (2015) and resources from the National Postdoc Organization for some suggestions. Next, you need to think hard about what it is that you’d like to do. Everyone has their own values and priorities. Questions you need to think about include: What do you really enjoy doing? How important is a high salary? How important is job stability? Where do you want to live? Do you like to teach / manage others / write? What are your personal goals and values?

Sarah Blackford has numerous resources on her Bioscience Careers blog and book to help you think about what you want to do. You can set up an Individual Development Plan at Science Careers to help you identify jobs that are a good fit for your personal needs and values. If you’re considering a career in industry, try to attend a Careers Expo to meet representatives of many different organizations all at one place (see the careers calendar on Sarah Blackford’s blog). Start reading job ads early, to see what kinds of skills are required for some of your dream jobs. Talk to everyone you meet about their job: how did they find it, what do they do, what are the best (and worst) aspects of that career? Seek out contacts and resources; finding the best job for you depends on your networking and planning.

Preparing for an academic jobPicture3

Don’t be discouraged by statistics. Academic jobs are competitive but there are opportunities, yet preparing for an academic job requires preparation. Start reading job ads early in your postdoc, and keep your CV up-to-date and polished. You’ll find academic jobs advertised in Nature and Science, and also professional society pages including ASPB and Plantae. The Chronicle for Higher Education is a great source of ads for short-term teaching positions such as sabbatical-leave replacements and one-year contracts. Scientists who have some teaching experience are much more competitive for tenure-track jobs at teaching-oriented institutions.

When you apply for an academic position, it is important to write a cover letter that is tailored for the position advertised. The search committee’s first cut is usually to eliminate applications with generic letters. Use your cover letter to show that you are a good fit for the job advertised. Depending on the focus of the institution, the search committee will be looking for evidence that you are able to secure external funds (grants), able to conduct and publish high-quality research, and have promise and often some experience as a teacher. They’ll also be evaluating you as a possible colleague; are you a good “citizen” who will work cooperatively within the department to take care of the departmental business? Do your skills fill a gap in the department but also provide opportunities for collaborations with others in the department?

You’ll also need to provide a research statement, and usually a statement of teaching interests and / or teaching philosophy. Writing these documents is not easy, so get advice (some excellent advice can be found in the links below), start early, and get feedback on your drafts. Finally, be sure to provide all of your documents to your referees so that they don’t accidently contradict your key messages.

You might get invited for a phone or Skype chat, which can be informal or formal. Success can lead to an invitation for a campus visit and formal interview, which will usually involve a research seminar and also sometimes a teaching talk. Research the department thoroughly ahead of a visit and express knowledge of and interest in your future colleagues (many a promising candidate has been torpedoed for forgetting this important point). The visit will include a chat with a senior administrator, and eventually a discussion about your start-up needs. Check out ASPB’s Membership Committee’s workshop Negotiating for Success Before you Sign at PlantBio16 to help you get your best deal.

 Open your mind to possibilitiesPicture2

The most satisfying work is work that suits you. The more you explore your career options, the more you’ll learn about yourself. Don’t try to be a square peg in a round hole; just because you dreamed of doing something when you were young or even last year doesn’t mean that that is the right job for you now. Your options are broad, as long as you take control of your job search and remember the insightful words of Louis Pasteur, “Dans les champs de l’observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés” (In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind).

Do you have any advice for those navigating the job search? Job hunters, what are your questions?

 Resources    
General career resources
Science Careers Be sure to create your free Individual Development Plan and check out the selection of useful booklets
Naturejobs.com
ChronicleVitae (Advice, blogs, tools; Some resources require free membership)
American Society of Cell Biologists – Career Wizard
American Society of Cell Biologists – Career Publications
EuroScience Open Forum Manchester 2016 = good careers programme (July, Manchester)
Naturejobs Career Expo Dusseldorf November 2016
The Chronical of Higher Education (news, blogs, advice and jobs – some pages require subscription)
Career Planning for Research Bioscientists (Sarah Blackford)
Boscience Careers Career Choice worksheet
The Thesis Whisperer, The Research Whisperer
Taking ownership of your own mentoring
Career Planning for Research Bioscientists (Sarah Blackford)

Broadening your experience and expertise (“transferable skills”)
Read and follow blogs at Nature Jobs and Science Careers
Inventory your skills at Vitae
Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR): Mentoring undergraduate students
iGEM – http://2016.igem.org
Plantae.org
PlantingScience.org

Broadening your footprint (getting your name known)
How to reach a wider audience for your research (SciDevNet)
Not Networking: Building Relationships for Success (Video, ASCB)
Getting the word out (The Scientist)
Twitter for plant scientists (ASPB)
To tweet or not to tweet (Science – on Jonathan Eisen)

Getting a faculty position
Insights into a faculty search committee By Sean Eddy
Six tips for writing an effective teaching statement (Amer Chem Soc)
How to write a statement of teaching philosophy (Montell, G., Chronical of Higher Ed)
Writing a teaching statement (PDF) (Yale University, ASCB)
At the Helm: Leading Your Laboratory (Kathy Barker)
Making the Right Moves, A Practical Guide to Scientific Management (HHMI)
Academic Job Search (University of Michigan)
The Professor is In (consultant / blogger)
Academic career resources (UCSF)

Non-Principle Investigator careers
EuroScienceJobs.com
Graduate survey: uncertain future (21 Oct 2015 Nature Jobs) Where do PhDs end up?
Klaue, Y. and Kellogg, D. (2015). Get that next job—how to break out of the postdoc trap. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 26: 3700-3703.
Careers After Biological Sciences
Alternative Careers in Science: Leaving the Ivory Tower. C. Robbins-Roth (ed). (2006).
Rescuing biomedical research What has to happen so PhDs have more options than academia? Organized by  Bruce Alberts, Marc Kirschner, Shirley Tilghman, Harold Varmus
Education: The PhD Factory (Nature News Feature)
The Open Notebook. The story behind the best science stories
Ed Yong. (2010). On the origin of science writers
Science Careers blog (Biomed Central)

Review: Plant synthetic biology for molecular engineering of signalling and development

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nplants201610-f1Nemhauser and Torii define synthetic biology as “an engineering approach to design, build and analyize dynamic molecular devices and/or pathways from biological components to produce cells and organisms with customized functionality.” In their review, they describe several plant synthetic biology approaches and outcomes, including efforts to identify and remediate toxins, engineer receptors, modify signals and molecular motars, and reprogram epigenetic controls. Nature Plants 10.1038/nplants.2016.10 and http://rdcu.be/oq1R

Review: Plant synthetic promoters and transcription factors

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cobtliustewartMany plant traits are multigenic, so engineering them requires modulating the expression of several genes simultaneously. Synthetic promoters and transcription factors offer such a possibility. For example, a cis-element can be introduced into the promoter of each gene of interest, and a synthetic transcription factor that activates gene expression via this cis-element and is itself activatable can be introduced into the cells. Liu and Stewart review the current status and trends, and future applications, of plant synthetic promoters and transcription factors. Curr. Opin. Biotech. 10.1016/j.copbio.2015.10.001

Review: Multi-gene engineering in plants with RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease ($)

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cobiotechcas9Raitskin and Patron review efforts to express multiple single guide RNA (sgRNAs) and Cas9 in plants for the coordinated expression of many genes. They argue for the need to create single plasmids carrying the sgRNAs and Cas9, using a Type IIS restriction endonuclease-mediated assembly method. Curr. Opin. Biotech. 10.1016/j.copbio.2015.11.008