Tag: Abiotic Interactions

Maintaining root growth is a major plant adaptation to water deficit, enabling continued access to soil water. In a recent review, Voothuluru et al. discuss the inherent complexity of root systems in regard to water stress. Different root types, including primary, seminal, and nodal roots, show varying…

Rhizosphere interactions between plants and microbes are essential for nitrogen cycling, stress tolerance, and plant health in general. Metabolites secreted by plant roots can greatly influence microbial community composition, although how different environmental conditions impact these interactions…

Many bryophytes and other non-seed plants are tolerant to vegetative desiccation, which is thought to have been necessary for colonization of land. By contrast, most seed plants lack this capacity, although they retain desiccation tolerance in their pollen and seeds. However, some seed plants, known…

Global climate change affects weather patterns, and excess soil salinity harms plant growth. Previous studies have shown interaction between the circadian clock and salt responses. In normal conditions, the core circadian clock oscillator GIGANTEA (GI) sequesters the SOS2 kinase, part of the salt-overly…

Soil salinization causes massive yield losses in agriculture, and its impact on plants goes beyond what our eyes can see. Roots are immediately affected by the direct exposure to a salt-(NaCl) rich substrate. Here, Zou et al. investigate the salt-induced altered root gravitropic responses in Arabidopsis…

Soil microbial communities respond rapidly to stress, potentially leading to altered compositions in stressful environments and consequently impacting plant natural selection. Bolin and Lau investigated the influence of microbial responses to stress and persistent microbial legacy effects on plant selection.…

When we speak about rice, we’re often referring to one of two domesticated species, Oryza japonica or Oryza indica. However, there are an additional 25 species in the genus Oryza. These so-called wild relatives harbor substantial genetic diversity that holds promise for crop improvement. Here, Prakash…

In my cruise around the internet looking for fascinating plant science, I found this tasty morsel. It’s a Spotlight feature of new paper on the effects of salt stress on plants of the genus Capsicum. I don’t want to detract from author Robert Calderon’s fine writing, so head over to Physiologia…

July brings delicious fruit harvests in the Northern Hemisphere, and a very special focus issue of Plant Physiology. I particularly like this issue because of the wide variety of species covered, starting with apple, banana, blueberry, cherry, citrus, and so on. It’s a nice departure from our usual…

The phytohormone ethylene is known for its importance in plant development and mostly for its role in fruit ripening. However, in this review Huang et al. summarize recent findings on ethylene’s role in temperature (hot and cold) stress response and ethylene crosstalk with other hormones. Interestingly,…

Climate change is having negative effects on yield of economically important crops such as rice. Therefore, there is a pressing need for climate-change adapted crops. Previous research has highlighted that a decrease in stomatal density can enhance drought tolerance. EPIDERMAL PATTERNING FACTOR-LIKE9…

Harvest index (HI) is the ratio of grain yield to the sum of grain, leaf, and stem biomass. HI is affected by environmental conditions such as water availability. Previously, carbohydrate remobilization from stem to grain has been shown to be affected by drought  (which in rice contributes to C remobilization)…

Few topics are as inherently interesting from both fundamental and applied perspectives as salt tolerance in crop plants. From the basic science side, cells have several strategies that they use to keep Na+ levels low in their cytosol in spite of what can be a very steep concentration gradient from out…

The January 2023 issue of The Plant Cell includes a focus issue on “Climate change and plant stress: From genes to ecosystems”. This timely focus issue has in it commentaries, reviews, and research articles on the topic. I particularly enjoyed reading the two reviews that include short perspectives…

Artificial selection has significantly increased crop yield. However, this has come at the cost of compromising abiotic stress tolerance. Stomatal aperture has an important role in abiotic stress tolerance. Abiotic stress induces stomatal closure and involves the intracellular production of reactive…

Salinity stress is one of the primary abiotic causes of crop loss worldwide. In roots, the early response to high salt levels is coordinated largely via the well characterized salt-overly sensitive (SOS) pathway, which is dependent on Ca2+ signaling. However, how plants cope with elevated salt levels…

The plasma membrane (PM) is a critical interface between the cell and its environment and serves crucial sensing and transducing roles. This timely review by Medina-Puche and Lozano-Durán updates exciting new developments in understanding communication between the PM and intracellular organelles, focusing…

Plants demonstrate increased susceptibility to pathogens upon exposure to heat stress, apparently due to suppressed salicylic acid (SA) accumulation and subsequently decreased effector-triggered immunity. How exactly does heat stress cause this suppression, and how can we take advantage of genetics to…

Generally, evolution is driven by natural selection, but not always. Human activities lead to the creation of unique niches, and other organisms must adapt accordingly. Cities are unique niches that are significantly different from rural areas and natural conditions. The urban habitat provides plants…

The seed germination niche is the set of environmental conditions in which a seed can germinate. This collection of requirements is expected to be tuned to the climate each species encounters in its natural habitat, but this hypothesis remains to be formally tested. Here, Carta and colleagues make use…

Seed dormancy is widely recognized as a key mechanism to ensure that germination takes place under the most suitable conditions. Such is its importance that multiple studies have described the morphological, physiological, and genetic mechanisms behind it, yet its global distribution and the past and…

Climate change is affecting the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events such as floods, reducing crop production severely. Submergence might lead to a lack of O2, light, and carbon dioxide, having an impact on the carbohydrate content and ATP synthesis. In this work, Xiangxiang et al. characterise…

Soil salinity is a major stress that hampers plant growth, but plants have evolved signaling pathways to sense and respond to salinity.  Zhou and colleagues have recently reported a novel pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana that that involves a peptide ligand, PAMP-INDUCED SECRETED PEPTIDE 3  (PIP3) and…

Global warming severely affects agricultural harvests, risking food security. To deal with heat stress, plants show different strategies. Indeed, heat increases intracellular Ca2+ levels to activate a heat shock response. In addition, GTP-binding proteins, which transduce extracellular signals to intracellular…

With the rising climatological extremes, heat stress is a major concern towards sustainable crop yield and productivity as it impairs several physiological and developmental processes. Due to the sessile lifestyle of land plants, they undergo various acclimation responses to cope with fluctuating temperatures.…

Posttranscriptional events such as splicing are part of the gene regulation toolbox. Previous studies have demonstrated a role for U-rich small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs) such as U1 in the control of splicing. In a recent paper in The Plant Cell, Chang et al. identified a splicing factor, RNA…

In addition to the vast array of metabolic and signaling roles, nitric oxide (NO) is prominently involved in low oxygen sensing in seeds and waterlogged plants. In Arabidopsis, the cytosolic nitrate reductase (NR) isoforms NIA1/NIA2 catalyze the reductive pathway of NO generation. NO sensing in plants…

Acidic soils often negatively impact plant growth, yet the application of fertilizers containing urea or ammonia have the effect of acidifying soils. In a recent paper, Ye and colleagues investigated how nitrate uptake through the nitrate transporter NITRATE TRANSPORTER 1.1 (NRT1.1) can mitigate some…

Plants experience changes in gene expression and cellular metabolism to improve their survival to abiotic stresses, such as hypoxia. It has been observed that environmental signals induce phospholipase D (PLD) which generates phosphatidic acid (PA) by cleaving membrane phospholipids. Indeed, submergence…

The November issue of Plant Physiology is a Focus Issue on Architecture and Plasticity. One of the most intriguing aspects of plant growth and development is the environmental responsiveness (also known as “plasticity”) of plant architecture (growth form). Depending on environmental conditions, roots…

Grasses fall into two clades, the more temperate BOP clade of C3 grasses (Bambusoideae, Oryzoideae, and Pooideae subfamilies), and the more tropical PACMAD clade of C3 and C4 grasses (Panicoideae, Arundinoideae, Chloridoideae, Micrairoideae, Aristidoideae, and Danthonioideae subfamilies). This review,…

Transgenerational memory can occur through epigenetic regulation of gene expression (for example through DNA methylation) when plants have been exposed to abiotic stresses. Transferring a specific biochemical adaption to the next generation of plants can help the plant counter stress. Here Xu et al.…

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. While multiple mechanisms have been proposed to be involved in the regulation…

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 adaptations to tolerate dry environments and make photosynthesis more efficient.…

Prions were first identified as the infectious protein agents causative of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease); when individuals eat something containing these prion proteins, the prion proteins induce conformational changes in their brains leading to neurological…

PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTORS (PIFs) play a pivotal role in mediating the responses of plants to various environmental stimuli. Although the importance of PIFs in shade avoidance response is well known, the relative contributions of different PIFs have not been discretely determined. In a recent study,…

Increase in ambient temperature often causes remarkable changes in the shape and organization of plant body, including elongation of hypocotyl and petioles, early flowering, and reduction in stomatal index, collectively known as thermomorphogenesis. Virtually all the molecular pathways that are known…

Calcium ions (Ca2+) occupy a primary position in plant cell signaling processes by virtue of their role as the so-called second messengers. Ca2+ signaling underlies plant response to various abiotic, biotic and developmental cues. Whilst this Ca2+ signaling was thought to predominantly occur in the cytoplasm,…

  Plantae Presents: Sophia Stone and Sjon Hartman Recorded April 14  Sophia Stone: The ubiquitin-proteasome system at the crossroads of abiotic and biotic stress tolerance Sophia Stone earned her PhD at York University, Canada, and completed an HFSP long-term fellowship at the University…

The root system has three key functions: support/anchoring, uptake of water, and uptake of nutrients. Many questions remain about how roots integrate all of these functions into the architecture of a single system. Here, Bardhan et al. explore whether modifying the nutrient environment (hence root’s…

The osmotic state of a cell is affected by internal (metabolite content) and external (water availability) factors. Recent work by Cuevas-Velazquez and colleagues describes the design of a FRET-based biosensor that allows dynamic monitoring of osmotic stress in living cells. They exploited features of…

Seed germination, a critical life stage in a plant's life cycle, can be affected by internal seed morphology. In this exciting research, Vandelook and colleagues investigated the evolution of embryo and nutritive tissue characteristics and their relationship with the germination traits of 84 species…

Everyone enjoys hearing about ancient trees that have been alive since various events in human history, but did you ever stop to wonder why some trees live for millennia and others don’t? If so, you’ll want to read this Tansley Review by Piovesan and Biondi. One of their first observations is that…

If you remember your biochemistry, lipids that are saturated (without double bonds) pack more tightly and therefore have a higher melting temperature than those that are unsaturated, therefore bend and pack less tightly (think of margarine versus oil). Plants can modify their membranes in a temperature-responsive…

Succulence provides plants with the ability to store water and is therefore commonly associated with plants from arid environments such as the familiar Aloe and Agave. Here, Heyduk reviews the genetic control of leaf succulence. Succulence usually involves large, highly vacuolated cells, but not surprisingly,…

A drop in ambient temperature adversely affects plant growth and development. While the primary molecular pathway in response to cold stress involves the expression of CBF transcription factors, Guillaume-Schöpfer and colleagues found cold stress-induced inhibition of ribosome translation machinery…

Plants launch their response to osmotic stress with a sudden spike in cytosolic Ca2+ levels, which subsequently leads to the accumulation of the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA). This further initiates a chain of events including closure of stomata, large-scale transcriptional changes, retardation of…

Climate change has increased global temperatures and affected agriculture in recent years. Heat stress can negatively impact plant growth, development, metabolism, fertility, and immunity. To generate resilient plants that will endure warmer weather conditions, it is imperative to understand how…

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 to stress in ways that may slow growth but ultimately promote survival. The…

Efficient phenotyping is important for plant breeding. For wheat, leaf reflectance spectra can be used to calculate leaf traits that impact crop yield, particularly constituent (leaf mass per area, nitrogen/chlorophyll content) and physiological (Rubisco carboxylation activity, electron transport…

Mountains are extraordinary natural laboratories. They encompass a wide range of environments in a relatively small space, making them ideal for assessing how different environmental variables shape plant traits and communities. Here, Wang and colleagues evaluate how seed functional traits vary along…

The canonical RdDM pathway mediates the control of seed germination timing under salinity ($) Epigenetic regulation can ensure that plant developmental programs and stress responses are tightly coordinated so that environmental changes do not compromise plant fitness. One of the mechanisms to achieve…

During its life cycle, a plant experiences many types of abiotic stress including drought. While waiting for the next drops of water, a thirsty plant acclimates by initiating a series of tolerance responses. Stress perception is followed by stress-induced signaling which can include reactive oxygen…

Global warming and intensive farming are increasing soil salinity, which is predicted to affect 30% of cultivated land by 2050. Salinity represents a major threat for agriculture as most crops drastically reduce their growth and productivity in saline environments. Understanding the strategies used by…

Many people are familiar with the popular houseplant Cephalocereus senilis, which also known as old man cactus because it is covered with long white hairs that are thought to protect it from frost and UV light. A similar function is described for the wooly fibers that cover the alpine plant Dionysia…

Plant communities seem to be able to mitigate the effects of climate and land-use change, given their responses are usually observed long after environmental conditions have changed. This lagged response has been attributed to the presence of persistent soil seed banks. Still, the evidence of their…

Some mangrove species are viviparous, meaning their seeds germinate while still attached to the mother plant. This behavior is thought to facilitate seedling establishment in the tropical and subtropical intertidal zones they inhabit. However, the genetic and molecular mechanism behind it remains to…

Fire is a disturbance that underpins several ecological processes in tropical savannas. For instance, some plant species from these ecosystems are traditionally known for relying on fires to reproduce. However, this dependency remains to be formally tested. Also, the impact of fire on seed quality…

Mudflats species experience rapid changes in their environment due to wetlands' drawdown and refill throughout the year. For instance, species that inhabit these sites deal with contrasting oxygen environments: hypoxic when the water level is high, and aerobic when it recedes. Most studies have aimed…

Several potential targets have been suggested to improve drought tolerance and water-use efficiency of crops, but many genes when upregulated can cause negative growth trade-offs. Stress recognition and signaling proteins are attractive targets as they may exert control over multiple downstream pathways…

Most seeds, pollen grains, and fern spores are desiccation-tolerant, meaning they remain viable after drying to low water contents. Given this property, they can be stored in cold and dry conditions and potentially remain alive for several years. However, there is increasing evidence that seed longevity…

Seagrasses are fascinating examples of adaptation. Like dolphins and other sea mammals, they are marine-dwelling descendants of species that had fully adapted to life on land. To survive submerged in saltwater has necessitated morphological, anatomical and physiological adaptations. Recent genome analysis…

As sessile organisms, sensing the external conditions is critical for plants to complete their life cycle and temperature is one of the major factors. In Arabidopsis, the evening complex senses the temperature and it consists of EARLY FLOWERING3 (ELF3), a scaffolding protein; ELF4, helical protein; LUX…

Plants communicate with the environment through stomata (i.e., pores found on leaf surfaces) and regulate gas exchange depending on internal and external cues by optimizing stomata density. Still, how plants integrate metabolic and environmental signals remain to be determined. Here, Han and colleagues…

The spatial configuration of roots is a complex and critical trait for productivity that is impacted by abiotic stresses such as drought, waterlogging, and salinity. Soil salinity is expected to affect 50% of agricultural land worldwide by 2050. This research describes that the loss of function of qSOR1…

Excessive heat and water deficit coincide with flowering and result in developmental defeats such as male floral organs browning, infertile pollen, and failure in fertilization: a syndrome known as “tassel blasting” in maize. The genetic pathway underlying tassel blasting is not well characterized.…

In response to UV-B light, the plant UV-B photoreceptor UV RESISTANCE LOCUS 8 (UVR8) monomerizes and activates, inducing UV-B acclimation and survival. Re-dimerization by REPRESSOR OF UV-B PHOTOMORPHOGENESIS 1 (RUP1) and RUP2 inactivates UVR8. In order to further clarify UVR8 pathway regulation, Podolec…

Stem growth determines the final height of graminaceous plants and greatly influences productivity in cultivated species (e.g., short internodes in semi-dwarf rice varieties to increase lodging resistance) and adaptation in wild species (e.g., elongated internodes in tall deepwater rice to help survive…

Soil seed banks allow plants to persist in fire-prone ecosystems. However, if seeds are buried too deep, seedling emergence can be inhibited. The maximum depth at which seeds can be buried without hampering recruitment is expected to be shaped by different seed traits, although this has been seldom tested.…

Seed longevity (i.e., the inherent lifespan of a seed) is a polygenic feature that demands the coordination of multiple biological processes, and that shapes the persistence of seeds in the soil and the time they can be stored ex situ. Recent studies on this trait highlight the role of the antioxidant…

  Developing drought tolerant plants is an important challenge in agriculture. Drought responses and plant growth are regulated by several signaling pathways, one of which is activated by brassinosteroids (BRs), a group of plant steroid hormones. In order to better understand the crosstalk…

In nature, plants face multiple environmental stresses simultaneously. Plant responses to combined stresses are often not merely the sum of responses to individual stresses; in the tissue that initially perceive stresses (local tissue), plants can integrate different stress signals to elicit unique responses.…

Climate change severely affects plant growth and jeopardizes yields of essential seed crops such as rice. Still, the mechanisms underlying the synergistic regulation of abiotic stress response and important agronomic traits remain poorly understood. Dong et al. cloned and characterized a major QTL in…

Low water availability limits seed germination in arid environments, such as the ones that Agave plants inhabit. As a result, vegetative propagation has been considered their most effective and successful method of reproduction. However, agaves produce several hundreds of seeds, and their natural populations…

Is it possible to simultaneously increase two incompatible features like grain yield and stress tolerance? Yin et al. suggest that optimizing cytokinin distribution in plant tissues is a promising strategy for that. ARGONAUTE2 (AGO2) and BIG GRAIN3 (BG3) genes work together promoting at the same time…

Fire shapes tropical savannas through direct (i.e., heat and smoke) and indirect (i.e., opening gaps) effects on the vegetation. However, its effects on seeds from neotropical grasses have seldom been addressed. In this paper, Dariel and Fidelis assessed the longevity and the impact of fluctuating temperatures…

Streptophytes are a grade of mostly freshwater algae that transitioned into land, a singularity that in turn gave rise to all present terrestrial flora. This passage along the hydrological gradient that culminated in land habitation required key adaptations to overcome previously unencountered terrestrial…

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDP) have repetitive protein sequences but lack a defined 3D structure and are deployed to do some challenging functions that a protein with a defined 3D structure cannot perform. One such IDP, Oryza sativa REPETITIVE PROLINE-RICH PROTEIN (OsRePRP) is involved in inhibiting…

Heavy metals are a potential threat to human health, especially in areas with high industrial activity where the metals leach in the soil to contaminate underground water. These metals are a threat to plants too, resulting in stunted growth and their eventual death. Wu et al. carried out a mechanistic…

Global environmental change brings new challenges to plants at different levels, including seed development and persistence. For example, the increasing ground-levels of ozone (O3) can affect seed viability, as a result of changes in the mother plant antioxidant machinery. These responses might depend…

Among the myriad small interfering RNAs, 21- and 24-nucleotides siRNAs control plant development and immunity through mRNA cleavage and RNA-directed DNA methylation, respectively. Still, the regulation and biological function of 22-nt siRNAs remain unresolved. In this report, Wu and coworkers investigated…

Plants are sessile organisms and as such they must be highly responsive to environmental cues including temperature, and adjust their growth and development accordingly. Considering that mean global surface temperatures are expected to continue to rise dramatically in the 21st century, it is crucial…

Desiccation tolerance (i.e., the capacity of surviving with very low water content) is widespread in seeds and pollen, but quite rare in vegetative organs. Most authors agree that in angiosperms it originated multiple independent times from rewiring seed desiccation tolerance pathways. Here, Pardo et…

The nucleus is an organelle with tremendous shape flexibility in response to environmental cues; it has been described as the “plastic, elastic, and fantastic” organelle. The change in nuclear geometry based on mechanical stress is well documented from single cell studies in culture, but the question…

Aquaporins, also known as plasma membrane intrinsic proteins (PIP), are a large group of transporters that facilitate water transport through membranes. In this article, Rahman et al. explored the role of aquaporins in the cold stress response. They found that two aquaporin genes, PIP1;4 and PIP2;5,…

The increasing global population causes an increasing need for food, but the changing climate means increasing drought occurrences. The April 17 2020 special issue of Science focusses on drought and its effects on food and the environment. The issue includes a fine review by Gupta et al. that provides…

High soil salinity has implications greater than what meets the eye; in addition to the apparent ‘ionic’ stress caused by the toxic sodium (Na+) and chloride (Cl-) ions, it causes osmotic stress (drought-like condition), altered potassium (K+) homeostasis, inhibition of photosynthesis and a plethora…

Environmental cues can affect the structure and function of proteins. To get broad empirical information about the effect of temperature on protein stability, Jarzab, Kurzawa, Hopf et al. generated an atlas of proteome thermal stability across 13 model organisms, including bacteria, yeast, worm, fish,…

In stressful situations, such as high light and nutrient scarcity, the chloroplast may experience increased proteotoxicity due to a surge in damaging reactive oxygen species. In response, a signal is sent to the nucleus to increase production of many proteins, including proteases and chaperones to help…

A longstanding question in plant science is how plants “know” that they are under threat. The identification of cell-surface receptors that identify conserved pathogen patterns sheds some light on biotic stress perception, but what about abiotic stresses such as excessive heat or drought? Lamers…

Nuclear factor Y (NF-Y) proteins are heterotrimeric transcription factors made up of A, B and C subunits that exist in higher eukaryotes. Previous work has implicated NF-Ys in root growth. Recently, Zhou et al. isolated a root-specific NF-Y family transcription factor in Populus designated as PdNF-YB21.…

Jasmonate responses are regulated not only by the well-studied pair of the bioactive hormone jasmonoyl-isoleucine (JA-Ile) and the receptor COI1, but also the cyclopentenone OPDA and the JA-Ile precursor dn-OPDA can activate jasmonate signaling. However, the OPDA/dn-OPDA signaling and their physiological…

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is an important signal involved in diverse stress responses both intracellularly and extracellularly, but until now it hasn’t been clear how the plant recognizes it. Wu et al. used a genetic screen to search for plants that fail to produce a calcium influx response in the presence…

For many years, the Arabidopsis transgenic allele ice1-1 was used to demonstrate the role of the transcription factor ICE1 in freezing and cold tolerance. This gene was first identified in a screening strategy using a luciferase reporter for DREB1A expression, another TF involved in downstream signaling.…

Many trees emit isoprene (C5H8, a small volatile carbon compound) during hot weather, and isoprenes have been shown to help trees tolerate short bursts of high temperatures (heat flecks). Isoprenes are not themselves harmful, but are reactive and can lead to the production of high levels of ground-level…

Plant Science Research Weekly: February 14 February 14, 2020/in Blog, WWR Full Post /by Mary Williams Review: Deep learning for plant genomics and crop improvement One of the goals of plant science is to use the molecular phenotype (genome, transcriptome, proteome) to predict the…

Plants have strategies to cool themselves when the temperature is hot. These include increasing their rate of transpirational cooling through stomatal opening and raising their leaves, which can enhance air flow. Previous studies have shown a role for the heat shock proteins (HSPs) and their cochaperone…

Urban gardens are a great way to introduce people to plant science, to bring fresh food into areas underserved by grocery stores (“food deserts”), and can promote a sense of community. But as Cooper et al. observe, many potential sites can be contaminated with heavy metals (lead, cadmium) and metalloids…

Water and nutrient availability are a major limiting factors for plant productivity. Plant have evolved a series of complex adaptive features that help them to survive in the hostile environment. Upregulation of lignin biosynthetic genes in roots under salt and water stress have been reported in some…

Nagashima et al. investigate molecular mechanisms for the sorting of a membrane protein KORRIGAN 1 (KOR1) in plant cells. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00714 By Y. Nagashima1, and H. Koiwa1,2 1Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center and Department of Horticultural Sciences, Texas…

ABA enhances stomatal closure and so decreases transpiration. Several studies have shown that increasing ABA levels can increase water-use efficiency, so this strategy has been investigated with the goal of obtaining “more crop per drop”. Lamarque et al. investigated physiological and hydraulic effects…

Much of our understanding of abiotic stress response comes from studies on short-lived annual plants, for good reasons: they are small and easy to study, their short-generation time makes them amenable to genetic studies, and most of our food comes from annual plants. Trees are more difficult to study,…

Reading this review by Diaz et al. feels a bit like reading a bad report card. Although we know we’re failing in our role as Earth’s stewards, we don’t always want to be reminded of this. But, in this case we need to read and act on the suggestions for improvement. The authors review the findings…

COP9 signalosome (CSN) is a conserved multi-subunit complex in higher eukaryotes that was originally identified as a regulator of plant photomorphogenesis. It functions by regulating ubiquitin-mediated protein stability, through the deneddylase enzymatic acitivity of the CSN5 subunit. CSN5 is encoded…

With global temperatures rising, tolerance to heat is becoming increasingly important as a breeding target for crop plants, but it is a highly complex response that includes processes including plant cooling capacity, growth recovery, and maintenance of photosynthesis. Using Arabidopsis, Gao et al. developed…

Although the first signaling peptide identified in plants, systemin, is involved in stress responses, developmentally important peptide signals have largely occupied the limelight. This Tansley Review by Chen et al. summarizes recent insights into peptides with a role in stress responses: wounding, pathogen…

Simply put, as food demand increases due to population growth and increased affluence, crop yields are likely to decrease due to the changing climate. Plant scientists will be familiar with many research avenues that aim to address this disconnect, ranging from increasing crop resilience to abiotic stresses,…

Bulliform cells lie in rows along the upper (adaxial) surface of the maize leaf, and through changes in volume contribute to leaf-rolling, which is a response to water deficit. Several mutants have been identified that affect bulliform cell formation and function, but as yet their occurance in natural…

Auxin plays a major role in plant development and can alter the developmental program following the stress response. In this paper, Yamauchi et al., have identified the auxin signaling cascade involved in the development of aerenchyma and regulators of this auxin signaling might also be involved in lateral…

Glucosinolates are secondary metabolites synthesized by plants as a defense compound against pathogen and herbivore. In this paper Salehin et al., have demonstrated regulation of aliphatic glucosinolate levels by auxin signaling that promotes drought tolerance in Arabidopsis. The Aux/IAA proteins are…

Previously, the needle1 (ndl1) maize mutant was identified as showing a variable phenotype mainly affecting the tassel. Here, Liu et al. showed that this variability arises due to its temperature sensitivity, with strongest effects at warmer temperatures. In some cases, the plants arrest before reaching…

Flooding is unpredictable and can lead to plant death due to insufficient oxygen (hypoxia). Some plant species and varieties are better able to survive periods of submergence. Here, Reynoso et al. looked at gene networks induced transcriptionally and translationally by flooding in rice, Medicago and…

Climate projection models predict an increasingly wetter world with frequent and severe flooding events, causing loss of crops. As it is for other organisms, it is a challenge for plants to stay under water for long periods. However, how plants react to submergence is poorly understood. Environmental…

Phospholipase D (PLD) enzymes cleave phosopholipds to release phosphatidic acid (PA), which is a signal that affects membrane dynamics. Previous studies have indicated a role for PLD and PA in root responses to osmotic and salt stress, but as the Arabidopsis genome has 12 genes encoding PLD questions…

Plants can modify their growth in response to environmental challenges. In a recent review, Vu et al. summarize the molecular mechanisms underlying high temperature responses during the Arabidopsis life cycle. At early stages, high temperature promotes abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis and decreases gibberellic…

Plants lack organs that are analogous to human ears, eyes or fingertips, yet they can detect changes in their environment. In this review, Dinneny describes how sensing heterogeneities in salt and water leads to changes in root architecture, optimizing soil foraging. The root tip typically follows the…

Plants’ invasion of land was accompanied by the evolution of a root system which in seed plants includes a fast gravitropic response. Gravitropism occurs through three distinct steps – (1) gravity perception by dense starch-filled amyloplasts, (2) transmission of gravitropic signal by auxin through…

Soil salinity is one of the most important global problems that negatively affect crop productivity. Jiang et al designed a forward genetic screen in A. thaliana to identify the specific ionic response triggered by salt stress. They mutagenized plants expressing the genetically encoded Ca2+ sensor aequorin,…

The corn we eat is a seed, which is a product of fertilization. It is widely known that corn yields are highly susceptible to abiotic stress conditions that occur during the repdroductive stage of development. Begcy et al. used a metabolomic / transcriptomic approach to understand why transient heat…

Due to climate change, drought stress is threatening sunflower yield, and phenotypic diversity could be the solution. Here Hussain et al. studied the introgression of silver canopy traits related to lower excised leaf water loss (high cuticular waxes, intense hairiness, and smaller leaf area) from the…

Plasmodesmata are channels through the cell wall that allow molecules and substances to move back and forth as needed; they also play a central role in growth, development and defence of all higher plants. In this study, Grison et al. describe the rapid relocation to the plasmodesmata pores of two plasma…

The angle at which roots grow into the soil is modulated by the interaction between genetics and environment, and involves the gravity perception and response pathways including auxin transporters. Ogura et al. did a GWAS analysis of the gravitropic response of different Arabidopsis accessions in…

In the grass family (Poaceae), the subfamily Pooideae, which includes economically important species like wheat, barley and forage grasses like ryegrass, dominates cold temperate habitats, although the ancestors of this group probably were adapted to tropical climates. Schubert et al. investigated the…

The balance between environmental stress tolerance and plant growth is an important research topic. Plant responses vary among species and varieties, but also with the growth environment. Soil, water, and environmental factors interact to affect plant growth responses to soil salinity. To engineer…

Climate change is expected to cause numerous negative impacts on plant populations. An under considered area that will be affected are the communities of soil organisms that rely on a delicate balance of environmental conditions, particularly in grasslands that receive moderate precipitation (mesic grasslands).…

Calcium and chloroplasts are both at the heart of the signal transduction during environmental stress. Teardo et al. studied whether the chloroplast-localized mitochondrial calcium uniporter has a role in stress signaling. The group identified 6 homologs of mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) in Arabidopsis,…

Plants have a remarkable ability to coordinate cellular activities across huge distances, yet we have only a basic understanding of how these remote activities are coordinated. A review by Rodrigues et al. summarizes what we know about the relationship between source (e.g., photosynthetic tissues) and…

Plant morphogenesis is a dynamic process that can be modulated in response to environmental cues. In this work, Xiao et al. characterized germination and seedling development in date palm. After germination, the cotyledonary petiole grows, but the embryo development is paused. At early stages of development…

Domestication has been accompanied by a decrease in genetic diversity, so efforts to improve stress tolerance can be aided by exploring the crop’s wild relatives. Here, Pailles et al. examined salt tolerance in Galapagos tomatoes (Solanum cheesmaniae and Solanum galapagense), which grow “constantly…

Arsenic contamination is a growing human health threat. The fern Pteris vittata demonstrates a remarkable capacity to accumulate and sequester high levels of the toxic heavy metal arsenic from contaminated environments. Cai et al. used an ‘omics’-guided approach to identify and characterize the molecular…

The agriculture sector is going to face big challenges to feed the 10 billion people that are going to inhabit the planet in the upcoming years with limited arable land. One effective practice to enhance the yield per unit area is to increase crop planting density.  However, in dense stands, plants…

As plants are sessile organisms, they have developed highly sophisticated mechanisms to allow the modulation of development in response to environmental changes, thus maximizing their chance of survival. When soil dries, soybeans with a slow canopy wilting (SW) phenotype have delayed canopy/leaf wilting…

Non-directional stimuli can trigger directional movements in plant organs. For instance, high temperature causes the upward bending of leaf petioles, a process known as leaf hyponasty, which helps to cool the leaves. In this study Park et al. explored the link between leaf thermonasty and auxins. Gene…

An increase in ambient temperature affects plant growth and development; for instance, high temperatures trigger elongation in petioles, hypocotyls, and roots in Arabidopsis seedlings. Bellstaedt et al. studied the spatial relationships in sensing, signaling and growth responses to high temperature in…

“Earth is a cold place with 80% of its biosphere permanently below 5°C,” begins this study of an Antarctic psychrophile (“cold-lover”). As Szyszka-Mroz et al. indicate, the permanently cold-adapted inhabitants of permanently frozen lakes are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change,…

Crop losses due to flooding are occuring with increasing frequency. Whilst time submerged can be lethal, the post-submergence period is also potentially lethal. In this new review, Yeung et al. provide an overview of factors that contribute to plant survival after flooding. Being submerged leads to hypoxia…

Plants possess plasticity for regeneration of organs after damage by physical, biotic or abiotic stress. The mitotically less-active organizer cells, quiescent center (QC) and surrounding initials form the stem cell niche, which is known to play a very important role in activation of the regeneration…

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous small noncoding RNAs that negatively regulate the expression of target genes through mRNA cleavage, translational repression and DNA methylation. The last decade has seen an exponential increase in the studies performed to understand the biogenesis of plant miRNAs, their…

One of the most plastic developmental process in plants is the timing of flower initiation. Plants select favourable conditions to achieve reproductive success. Light and temperature are continuously monitored through molecular mechanisms that are still poorly understood. Drought escape (DE) is an adaptive…

Autophagy means “self-eating” in ancient Greek. It’s a process in which cellular components are delivered to lytic vacuoles to be reused. This recycling process promotes abiotic and biotic stress tolerance. In this review, Signorelli et al. highlight in detail plant autophagy in abiotic and biotic…

How does a plant sense the elevation in atmospheric temperature? What are the missing links betweena rise in atmospheric temperature, its sensing, and responses triggered? Vu et al. discuss how conformational and structural changes of DNA, RNA and proteins could be the sensors to temperature change.…

The evolution of signaling pathways in plants enabled the water to land transition, during which drought response was crucial for the adaptation to terrestrial habitats. Here, Zhao et al. reveal the role of drought- induced phosphoadenosine (PAP) in the regulation of abscisic acid (ABA) synthesis in…

Huertas et al. show that SME1 modulates spliceosome activity to shape plant development and tolerance to freezing temperatures. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00689   By Raúl Huertas, Noble Research Institute, Admore, Oklahoma, USA. Rafael Catalá, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas-CSIC,…

Understanding environmental stress in plants is undoubtedly important due to the consequences of climate change in crop productivity and survival of plants. Metabolomics based on liquid chromatography and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS, GC-MS) allows an understanding of the metabolic…

Abiotic stress influences plant development, with the phytohormone ABA playing an important role. Ramachandran et al. have demonstrated ABA mediated activation of microRNA 166, which regulates expression levels of the HD-ZIP III transcriptional factor family. Exogenously supplied ABA alters xylem patterning…

Auxin, a plant hormone and major growth regulator, is fundamental for adaptations to climatic variation in shoots but its role in roots under elevated temperatures is more controversial. PIN-LIKES (PILS) 2, 3 and 5 proteins have previously been identified to restrict nuclear auxin signalling but the…

Plants sense and respond to various external stimuli throughout their lifespan. During stress responses brought forth by abiotic or biotic factors, molecular and physiological adjustments mediated by distinct yet interconnected hormone pathways play critical roles in plant survival. Berens et al. investigate…

Acid soils (pH < 5.5) mobilize aluminum (Al) in the rhizosphere, which damages the root meristem and hinders exploration for nutrients and water. Zhang et al. demonstrate that a mutation in ZmPGP1, an auxin transport protein, imparts enhanced root growth under toxic Al conditions. The enhanced root…

Premature leaf senescence can occur due to a mutation of a L-cysteine desulfhydrase1 (DES1) gene that encodes an enzyme that produces hydrogen sulfide (H2S), a "gasotransmitter" with functions in plants as well as mammals. Jin et al. explored the physiological functions of H2S  in Arabidopsis. In addition…

Progression of the cell cycle central to growth, but during stress conditions plants arrest cell cycle progression to enable the organism to survive. SUPPRESSOR OF GAMMA RESPONSE 1 (SOG1), a plant-specific NAC-type transcription factor, regulates the expression of almost all genes induced by double-strand…

Rice (Oryza sativa) is an important food source in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, this crop requires large amounts of water and it is not tolerant of drought or high temperatures. Here, Caine et al., have engineered the ‘IR64’ rice cultivar so that leaves will have lower stomatal density.…

The reproductive success of angiosperms relies on the fertilization of the female gametophyte (egg sac) by pollen that travels long-distances in the pistil. Previous studies suggest a role for phenylpropanoid-related metabolites (flavonoids and anthocyanins) in controlling pollen growth and fertilization,…

LEA genes were first identified as being highly abundant during seed desiccation (hence their name), but later were also shown to accumulate in other tissues in response to drought stress, and to confer desiccation tolerance in “resurrection plants”. These small proteins are characterized by having…

Climate change is a potent environmental force that all living organisms must contend with. This is especially true for photosynthetic, microalgae that are forced to acclimate to ever changing water temperatures and coordinate changes in their physiology and growth rates (Singh and Singh, 2015). These…

Plants use diverse strategies for salt tolerance, including regulated transport of several different ions and production of compatible organic solutes. In April 2018, a workshop was held to discuss strategies for breeding salt tolerance in plants, with a focus on the energy requirements of various strategies.…

Several recent studies have demonstrated that plants are able to respond to environmental challenges within minutes, through electrical signals, calcium oscillations, hydraulic changes, metabolites such as glutamate, and reactive oxygen species. Kollist et al. review studies of rapid responses that control…

Plants can die from a lack of oxygen (hypoxia), which contributes to the devastating losses caused by flooding. Iacopino et al. set out to develop a more specific method for detecting oxygen levels in plants, based on the mammalian Hypoxia Inducible transcription Factor HIF.  HIF is hydroxylated by…

Phosphate deficiency leads to arrest of primary root elongation. Previous work has shown that this arrest depends upon Fe, raising the possibility that Fe accumulation in the root apex is the cause of growth arrest. Several genes involved in low Pi response have been identified, including genes encoding…

Higashi et al. investigate the function of a heat-inducible lipase in Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Cell (2018). https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00347 By Yasuhiro Higashi and Kazuki Saito Background: Land plants suffer from high-temperature stress, exacerbated by climate changes in recent years.…

Phytotoxic aluminum can drastically harm plant roots, leading to decreased nutrient uptake, water absorption and yields. Many plant species efflux organic anions into the rhizosphere to reduce the toxic effects of aluminum. Some of the genes that encode transporter proteins which mediate organic anion…

Desiccation tolerance is the property of being able to survive and recover from extreme dehydration. Although there are many desiccation-tolerant plant species, efforts to identify the genetic basis of desiccation tolerance have been limited by a lack of closely-related desiccation sensitive species.…

In the face of increasing incidence of drought events, developing drought-tolerant plants becomes urgent matter. However, the increase in drought tolerance often coincides with the significant reduction of plant size, as in the case of overexpressing DEHYDRATION-RESPONSIVE ELEMENT-BINDING PROTEIN 1A…

The recent focus on quinoa is a result of not only its high nutritional value, but also its astonishing salt stress tolerance. Epidermal bladder cells (EBC) are suspected to be a cause of salinity tolerance by serving as salt dumping place. In order to identify molecular mechanisms underlying salt sequestration,…

Several years of intensive research have revealed a suite of mobile signals that travel long-distances to inform meristems on developmental phase transitions or to protect distal plant tissues from abiotic or biotic stressors. In a new article published in Science, Toyota et al. (2018) identify a role…

Recent evidence indicates that H2S acts as an important messenger that affects plant responses to abiotic stresses, including high salinity, drought, heat shock, heavy metals, and oxidative stress. H2S signaling has also been shown to modulate important physiological processes, such as photosynthesis,…

Plastids differentiate into subtypes. For example, the transition of proplastids to chloroplasts defines the photosynthetic tissues within a plant, whereas amyloplasts are formed in nonphotosynthetic tissues. Recently, evidence has accumulated for a novel class of plastids that is specialized for stress…

Plants experience abiotic stresses, such as alteration of temperature, and their responses have been studied through transcriptomics and proteomics approaches. X et al have studied how low temperature stress affects the transcriptome through alternative splicing. The author showed that a few hours after…

Liu, et al. examine how wound response and its control mechanism differs between domesticated and wild tomato. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00194. By Ming-Jung Liu and Shin-­Han Shiu Background: Two related species accumulate differences between each other over time. If one of the…

Increasing water use efficiency is important for improving crop yields in diverse environments. This has been difficult due to the complex morphological and biochemical processes involved in water use and plant growth. Feldman and colleagues use a high-throughput phenotyping platform to monitor an interspecific…

REIL1 and REIL2 proteins in Arabidopsis are homologs of REI1, a yeast ribosome biogenesis factor. REI1 facilitates 60S ribosomal maturation in yeast. Beine-Golovchuk and co-workers have studied the cold acclimation response of the double mutant reil1-1 reil2-1. Previous studies by the same group showed…

The transition from aquatic to terrestrial environments exposed the earliest land plants to higher doses of damaging ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation. To cope with this stress, land plants evolved complex signalling mechanisms and an inventory of protective ‘sunscreen-like’ flavonoids. To explore whether…

As sessile organisms, plants must constantly sense and respond to a dynamic range of stimuli in their environment, which includes both the duration of light (photoperiod) and the presence of microbial invaders. In a recent article published in Plant Physiology, Cagnola et al. (2018) investigate how plant…

Calixto et al. demonstrate a rapid wave of alternative splicing as temperatures drop. The Plant Cell (2018) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00177. By Cristiane Calixto and John Brown Background: Alternative splicing (AS) allows a single gene to produce more than one transcript, which can affect…

Ma et al. investigate epigenetic aspects of heat-induced male sterility in cotton. By Yizan Ma, Ling Min and Xianlong Zhang Background:  Global warming causes extremely high temperatures in summer in some areas. Certain crops cultivated in summer cannot tolerate extreme heat stress and begin…

Press release from The World of Seeds, translated by Google Translate Rice and upland rice are two ecological types of Asian cultivated rice that are differentiated under different water conditions, and their drought resistance is significantly different. Therefore, mining the drought-resistant genes…

Global climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing our world today. The impact of increasing temperatures can be felt in diverse areas, including human health and disease, natural ecosystems, and food security. In the agricultural sector, deciphering how plants respond to changing environmental…

Through a GWAS study, Yu, Xiong et al. previously identified a transcription-factor encoding gene, OsLG3, with alleles that contribute to increased grain length in rice. In this new work, Xiong, Yu et al. showed that the same alleles of OsLG3 that confers longer grain length also enhance drought tolerance.…

Segami et al. investigate cellular phosphate homeostasis in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00911 Background: Many biological reactions, including the biosynthesis of DNA, RNA, proteins, and polysaccharides, produce inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi). However, accumulation of PPi…

The diverse responses of rice to flooding are really interesting. Many varieties die, some survive by essentially becoming metabolically quiescent to conserve their energy (which involves the Sub1 pathway), and some, called deepwater rice, respond through rapid elongation that elevates their leaves above…

Wang et al. show that abscisic acid-inducible genes encode lipid degrading enzymes that release polyunsaturated fatty acids from chloroplast lipids as precursors for jasmonic acid production leading to biotic defenses in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00250 By Kun Wang and Igor Houwat Background:…

Zhou et al. demonstrate that a kinase STRK1 can phosphorylate CatC to enhance rice salt toterance. The Plant Cell (2018). https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.01000 By Yan-Biao Zhou, Cong Liu, Jian-Zhong Lin and Xuan-Ming Liu Background: Salt stress can significantly affect plant growth and agricultural…

Despite major advances in understanding cold signaling, cold acclimation, and freezing protection in model and crop species, and extensive studies of natural variation in freezing tolerance in Arabidopsis accessions, the question of which genes and mechanisms underlie freezing tolerance of wild species…

The plant hormone auxin is a major player in determining root growth and architecture, but we are just starting to understand how auxin distribution is altered by abiotic stresses. Kover et al. discuss how the “upside-down fountain” of auxin in the root is affected by abiotic stress conditions. Auxin…

Ye et al. discover a protein that mediates phosphate translocation and is dependent on environmental phosphate supply. Plant Cell (2018). https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00845 By Qing Ye and Yi-Fang Chen Background: Phosphorus is a major essential nutrient for plant growth and development, and phosphate…

Zauner et al. investigate the mechanism of protein re-purposing. The Plant Cell (2018). https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00963. By Florian B. Zauner, Elfriede Dall and Hans Brandstetter Background: Plants cannot run away from herbivores, drought, or heat. To withstand adverse conditions, plants have…

By Adam Phillips. Reprinted from It Ain't Magic, The RIKEN Global Communications Team https://itaintmagic.riken.jp/hot-off-the-press/plants-beat-heat It seems like I’ve been writing a lot about plants recently. The truth is that I hardly have enough time to write about all the cool plant…

Low temperature is one of the environmental factors limiting the plant distribution. Yet there are some plants that can survive freezing temperatures, such as Boechera stricta, native to the Rocky Mountains, spread across a broad range of elevations. Arisz and colleagues observed that freezing tolerance…

Patrut et al. report that 8 of the 13 oldest and 5 of the 6 largest African Baobab (Adansonia digitata L.) trees, known for their enormous size and great longevity, have died (or at least their largest and/or oldest parts/stems have collapsed and died). Included in the dead are Panke, the oldest Baobab…

Plants in temperate regions experience near-freezing temperatures that allow them to develop a cold response prior to freezing. This cold acclimation process involves changes to chromatin structure, transcription, RNA processing, translation, post-translational modifications and protein stability. Genome-wide…

Humans have domesticated crops for thousand of years by artificially selecting plants for numerous traits including morphology, lower toxicity or higher yield. As a result, plant domestication often altered plant fitness and resistance to stress under controlled conditions (Meyer & Purugganan 2013).…

The plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays a critical role in enhancing plant survival during water deficit. While there is no doubt that ABA is a carotenoid derivative and that carotenoid cleavage occurs in the chloroplast, uncertainty remains about which tissues are responsible for synthesizing ABA.…

The exposure of plants to prolonged darkness leads to the exhaustion of starch reserves and carbon and energy starvation. In such cases, plants must use alternative nutrient and energy sources to survive. Autophagy is an important mechanism that breaks down proteins and lipids and thereby provides the…

A key question in plant stress physiology is how the plant perceives stress in order to mitigate its effects. Heat (and other) stress can lead to an accumulation of unfolded or misfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum, which initiates the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), leading to a change in…

Drought stress results in a conglomeration of hormone pathways that interact to coordinate plant growth and stress response. ABA and cytokinin signaling are known to be antagonistic but it is unclear how these two pathways are connected. Huang et al. identified roles for several ARR proteins, negative…

Iowa State University AMES, Iowa – Plant scientists at Iowa State University have completed a new study that describes the genetic pathways at work when corn plants respond to stress brought on by heat, a step that could lead to crops better capable of withstanding stress. The findings, published…

Most students learn that metabolism does not increase at the same rate as an animal’s size – an elephant eats much less per unit of body mouse than a mouse does. This non-linear scaling, described through metabolic scaling theory, also occurs in plants – the growth rate of large plants is relatively…

Toh et al. screened more than 20,000 chemicals from chemical libraries for compounds that regulate stomatal movement. They used Commelina benghalensis for their screen, as its stomata are about twice as large as those in Arabidopsis thaliana. They identified nine compounds that inhibited stomatal opening…

Ding et al. have just elucidated an important protein involved in the cold response of plants: BTF3L (basic transcription factor 3-like). The CBF/DREB (C-repeat binding factor/dehydration-responsive element protein) family of transcription factors are the main cold responsive pathway. The new article…

In a new study published in The Plant Cell, a team of researchers identified a gene that limits yield losses in rice plants exposed to salt stress and deciphered the underlying mechanism. Soil salinity poses a major threat to food security, greatly reducing the yield of agricultural crops. Rising…

Stress due to high heat and drought causes losses in wheat production all over the world. While genetic variation and quantitative trait loci for drought and heat tolerance are known, the genetic loci that underlie tolerance to these combined stress are likely different from those that underlie each…

Salinity is a widespread stressor. Zhou et al. investigated the role of receptor-like kinases (RLKs) in salinity tolerance by identifying RLKs that are transcriptionally upregulated by salt treatment. Candidates were introduced either as overexpression (full-length) or dominant negative (partial) clones,…

Du et al. investigate an important protein that regulates photosynthesis under stress. Plant Cell. https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00446.                                                                               Background:…

Rice (Oryza sativa) paddies frequently become submerged during the rainy season in some parts of South and Southeast Asia, such as Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Submergence stress is harmful to plants. In addition to causing O2- and CO2-deficient conditions by restricting environmental…

Abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, low temperature, and flooding usually lead to sugar accumulation. It has been reported that the accumulation of Glc, Suc, and Fru under high salinity plays an important role in carbon storage, osmotic regulation, and homeostasis, as well as scavenging of free…

Soil water availability is a major constraint for crop growth throughout the world. Hydrotropism, the bending of roots in response to moisture gradients, enables plants to take better advantage of available soil water. In contrast to gravitropism and phototropism which have been studied extensively,…

For most plants, becoming submerged under water can be lethal due to a restriction in gas exchange. One strategy for submergence tolerance is called an escape strategy, such as that employed by deepwater rice; the plant elongates rapidly to raise its leaves above the water level. Minami et al. used transcriptomics…

Plants are able to sense and respond to temperature changes in their environment.  However, the mechanism by which high temperature is sensed and then relayed to affect the expression of heat shock transcription factors (HSFs) is unclear.  Dickinson et al. demonstrated that Arabidopsis plants show…

Zheng et al. discover proteins that mediate interactions between gibberellins and the circadian clock https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00830 By Han Zheng and Yong Ding Background: Hypocotyl elongation helps the shoot emerge from the soil surface. The gibberellin (GA) signaling protein RGA inhibits…

Wang et al. investigate how two proteins work oppositely to regulate wax contents and drought stress response in rice https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00823 By Zhenyu Wang and Qingyun Bu Background: Rice is a staple food for world populations and its production is threatened by drought stress. Cuticular…

Li et al. investigate a transcription factor network that transmits environmental signals to regulate secondary metabolism in plants. The Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00805. By Baohua Li and Daniel Kliebenstein Background: Plants produce specialized secondary metabolites to survive…

van Gelderen and Kang et al. investigate the root response to Far-Red light detection in the shoot. The Plant Cell (2017). https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00771 By Kasper van Gelderen and Ronald Pierik Background: Sunlight is the energy source for plants, however, when plants grow closely together…

Chen et al. link chromatin modifying machinery with ribosome biogenesis. The Plant Cell (2018). https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00626 by Xiangsong Chen and Xuehua Zhong Background: All cells need to make proteins to function properly. Ribosomes are the protein production factories consisting of…

Malnoë et al. demonstrate that a protein from the lipocalin family plays a role in promoting energy dissipation that prevents damage from long-term light stress. The Plant Cell (2017).  https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00536  By Alizée Malnoë Background: Light is necessary for plant growth…

Under drought conditions, moderate leaf rolling improves yield in rice by reducing water loss and allowing efficient photosynthesis (leaf upright position). In STTM166 transgenic rice plants,  miRNA166 is knocked down (STTM means "short tandem target mimic") and the plants constitutively exhibit the…

Guest Editor:  Alecia Biel Alecia is a graduate student at The Ohio State University in the US and has been a Plantae Fellow since September 2017.  Her research focuses on elucidating hormone signaling pathways and the role of the nucleus during this process, particularly throughout plant abiotic…

Schmitz et al. investigate the physiological significance of the glyoxylase system  in Arabidopsis https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00258 By Jessica Schmitz and Veronica G. Maurino BACKGROUND: In every living cell, side reactions of enzymes and spontaneous reactions of metabolites inevitably…

Ca2+-dependent protein kinases (CPKs) can transfer calcium signals via phosphorylation events, a signaling process important for plant development and response to environmental stresses. With the multitude of CPKs thus far identified and their overlapping roles in both abiotic and biotic stress response,…

Gil et al. explore ZTL-mediated protein quality control https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00612 By Kyung-Eun Gil Background: As sessile organisms, plants have evolved various mechanisms to adapt to environmental changes. Under stressful conditions such as high temperatures, proteins are misfolded…

Huot et al. describe how elevated temperature (30 °C) enhances Arabidopsis thaliana disease susceptibility to the bacteria Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (Pst DC3000): this includes an increase of bacterial type III secretion suggesting that increased Pst DC3000 virulence at 30°C is linked…

Nuclear accumulation of DELLA proteins induces transcriptional reprogramming and is well known to suppress the gibberellin (GA) pathway. While DELLAs can negatively regulate GA, increased GA levels can also signal DELLA degradation. GA is a growth-regulating hormone that is also involved in inhibiting…

Wild relatives of domesticated plants, such as tomato, are valuable resource for breeding, but their genomes are often not very well sequenced. Razali et al. provide the first high-quality genome of wild tomato S.pimpinellifolium LA0480, and use Dragon Eukaryotic Analysis Platform to functionally annotate…

By Romy Schmidt, Daan A Weits, Claudio FJ Feulner, Joost T. van Dongen Plants grow in a dynamic environment and continuously face numerous stress conditions in parallel. This fluctuating environment pushed the evolution of extensive metabolic flexibility (Sweetlove et al., 2010; van Dongen et al.,…

It has been speculated that DNA methylation could complement genetic variation, as a mode for transferring heritable information, to contribute to phenotypic variation. Indeed, DNA methylation states can be maintained faithfully over both mitotic and meiotic cell division. According to this view, any…

By Agata Daszkowska-Golec The nuclear cap-binding 16 complex (nCBC) in higher eukaryotes specifically binds to the monomethylated (7-methylguanosine (m717 GpppN)) cap structure at the 5¢ end of freshly transcribed mRNA. In addition to protecting mRNAs from degradation by exonucleases, the nCBC functions…

The cuticle is a cell-wall polymer that protects against desiccation, pathogens and UV light.  Domínguez et al. provide an open-access editorial that describes this fine collection of articles covering all aspects of the plant cuticle, from its evolutionary origins to its ecological significance. Within…

While everyone knows that salt stress reduces root growth, Julkowska and colleagues examined salt-stress induced changes in Root System Architecture (RSA) by studying 347 Arabidopsis accessions. The authors collected 17 RSA traits and developed an app allowing interactive exploration of collected…

By Takaki Yamauchi, Timothy D Colmer, Ole Pedersen, Mikio Nakazono Introduction Root acquisition of water and nutrients is essential for plant growth and crop productivity (Lynch, 2015). An improved understanding of root system development and functioning, to identify root traits contributing to…

By Rashmi Sasidharan, Sjon Hartman, Zeguang Liu, Shanice Martopawiro, Nikita Sajeev, Hans van Veen, Elaine Yeung, Laurentius A.C.J. Voesenek Abstract Flooding is detrimental for nearly all higher plants including crops. The compound stress elicited by slow gas exchange and low light levels under…

Desiccating leaves show increased ABA levels triggered by low turgor – right? Apparently not! The pressure chamber experiments showing increased ABA levels in desiccating leaves are inconsistent when the entire leaves are enclosed in the chamber. Sack et al. proposes that the turgor pressure is increased…

Changing climates mean changing rainfall patterns, which can have serious consequences for long-lived plants such as conifers. Moran et al. provide a thoughtful and readable overview of the strategies that enable some conifer species to survive drought. They start by discussing the different definitions…

Much of our knowledge concerning ABA-induced stomatal closure comes from genetic models such as Arabidopsis and Vicia faba. Watkins et al. explore the mechanism of ROS production in this abiotic stress pathway in an important agricultural crop: tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum). Specifically, they are…

Kaundal et al. examine how a protein keeps plants safe from invading pathogens and dehydration http://www.plantcell.org/content/29/9/2233 By Amita Kaundal, Vemanna S. Ramu, Kirankumar S. Mysore Background: To cause disease in plants, bacteria must enter plant tissue and multiply. Bacteria and…

By Junmarie Soto-Burgos, Xiao-Hong Zhuang, Liwen Jiang, and Diane C. Bassham Autophagy, literally defined as “self-eating”, functions as a degradation process by recycling cytoplasmic contents under stress conditions or during development. Upon activation of autophagy, a membrane structure known…

Eisenach et al. discover A new ion channel of the plant vacuole helps plants react to drought https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00452 By Cornelia Eisenach Background: Stomata are small pores on plant surfaces that facilitate diffusion of CO2, O2 and water vapor between plant and atmosphere.  During…

Boxall et al. investigate CAM photosynthesis in Kalanchoë fedtschenkoi The Plant Cell (2017). https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00301 Background: During photosynthesis, most plants use the enzyme Rubisco to capture CO2 during the day. Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plants such as prickly pears,…

Fusari et al. perform GWAS to explore primary plant metabolism https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00232 By Corina M. Fusari and Rik Kooke Background: Primary metabolites such as sugars, organic acids, and amino acids are essential chemical compounds that drive plant growth and development by providing…

The N-end rule pathway is a conserved pathway for the control of protein turnover, through which the clipping or modification of amino acids from the amino-terminus of a protein leads to an interaction with PROTEOLYSIS 6 (PRT6; an N-recognin E3 ligase) and 26S proteasome-mediated proteolysis. Previously,…

Quenopodiium quinoa is a highly nutritive and facultative halophyte pseudocereal whose cultivation has increased 10 fold in the last decades. However, the adaption to non-native areas is not easy to achieve and the limited genetic resources do not allow a breeding program. Zou and collaborators have…

If you whithold water from a plant it eventually will wilt, but before this visible change there are other measurable effects and responses. However, many plant processes change cyclically over a 24-hour period independently of early drought responses, so it can be difficult to separate drought-responsive…

Light response research in plants has traditionally focused on the shoot, but recent studies have revealed that roots are also light responsive. Lee et al. address the why and how of root photomorphogenesis. They review three ways that light is perceived in roots: via mobile signals from the shoot, direct…

Liu et al. focus on transcriptional regulation of PHR1 expression. The Plant Cell 2017. https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00268 Phosphorus (P) is an essential micronutrient for plant growth, development, and metabolism. Phosphate (Pi), the major form of P used by plants, is highly immobile in most soils,…

Zhang et al. investigate protein translation under heat stresss http://www.plantcell.org/content/29/8/1952 By Elizabeth Vierling Plants can’t move to avoid unfavorable growth conditions, such as insufficient water availability or extremes of temperature. When plants are confronted with stressful…

Fujii et al. studied the role that blue-light perceiving phototropins play in sensing temperature. They studied the temperature response in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, which has only one phototropin. At 5°C, blue-light perception by phototropins induces a cold-avoidance response in which chloroplasts…

The ability to acclimate to high temperatures that are normally lethal is common to virtually all organisms on the planet. A short exposure to milder heat stress informs organisms that they should ready themselves in case they experience even warmer conditions. Acquired thermo-tolerance in plants is…

Although plants clearly perceive and respond to changes in temperature, it has not always been clear how they perceive temperature and its changes. Evidence for temperature sensing through membrane fluidity, protein stability and, more recently, the reversion of phytochrome to its inactive form has been…

Although future negative impacts on crop yields expected from rising temperature are well known to plant scientists, there are still some members of the broader public that need to be made aware of this problem. Zhao et al. combined four different methods of assessing the impact of increasing temperatures…

With both biotic and abiotic stresses predicted to worsen due to climate change, the ideal crop of the future must have traits to handle both. Common abiotic stresses like drought, cold, and salinity cause osmotic stress by disrupting cell turgor. Exposure to a mild salt treatment leads some plants to…

Light and temperature are two major factors affecting plants’ growth. Jiang et al. discovered a circuit (EBF1/2-PIF3-CBF) that integrates light and freezing tolerance by integrating EBF1/2 (EIN3-BINDING F-BOX 1/2), PIF3 (PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR 3) and CBF (C-REPEAT BINDING FACTOR). In light,…

Root cortical senescence (RCS) is a type of programmed cell death found in the Triticeae tribe. RCS is unrelated to the formation of root cortical aerenchyma or the loss of the root cortex due to secondary growth in dicots. Conceivably RCS may benefit the plant by reducing maintenance respiration in…

Chilling to 4° induces cell death in a subset of cells at the Arabidopsis root tip, the CSCDs (columella stem cell daughters, located just distal to the quiescent center). Hong et al. show that this cell death is dependent on cell division and that it is an active, programmed response. Blocking this…

Kim et al. explored the molecular basis for the drought tolerance previously observed for mutants of histone deacetylase HDA6. They observed that genes involved in acetate production are upregulated in hda6 mutants and in drought-stressed plants. Furthermore, acetate biosynthesis mutants are more sensitive…

By Fulton E. Rockwell, and N. Michele Holbrook The structure of leaf vasculature viewed over a broad phylogenetic scale from lycophytes to eudicots correlates with stomatal conductance (gs), providing the basis for the hypothesis that increasing vein density drove the evolution of high fluxes in angiosperms.…

Water deficit (WD) is one of the main environmental stress factors affecting crops and global food security. Acclimation to WD, however, enables plants to maintain growth under unfavorable environmental conditions. To shed light on the molecular mechanisms underlying WD acclimation, Rymaszewski et al.…

This study by Ramamoorthy et al. showed that survival of plants under drought conditions is not a sufficient goal for breeding. Rather,  yield for biomass and food production under water deficit is a better target. Chickpea genotypes having better root growth and higher root density showed better grain…

An experimental study by Tomeo and Rosenthal with soybean cultivars  demonstrated that there exists genotypic differences in mesophyll conductance (gm),  and that the potential exploitation of this trait may increase crop productivity. It was found that there exists a proper coordination mechanism…

Yamauchi et al. study the formation of aerenchyma in rice – spongy tissue filled with air spaces that develop in roots of wetland plants http://www.plantcell.org/content/29/4/775.abstract Plants, like animals, need oxygen for respiration (the metabolic process of breaking down sugars to get energy).…

Kidokoro et al. investigate how plants sense cold and activate cold tolerance http://www.plantcell.org/content/29/4/760.abstract. Cold stress can be just as lethal as heat stress. When a cell freezes, the water inside it expands as it turns to ice. This can cause the cell membrane to rupture and lead…

Sun et al. observed that under dehydration stress, many genes showed a 3′ untranslated region (3′ UTR) extension of roughly 200 – 800 nucleotides. The outcome of these extensions appears to be the regulation of other genes. For example, through their extension, many (more than 600) of the extended…

Salinity is a growing problem for food production. Progress has been made in understanding how plants tolerate salinity, mostly focused on strategies for tolerance at the plasma membrane and cytosol. Bose et al. review studies that focus on how the chloroplast is affected by salinity. The authors review…

Growth inhibition is one of the most consistent plant responses to Ultraviolet-B (UV-B) exposure; this radiation, both as part of the solar spectrum in the field and from UV-B lamps in controlled environments. In this work, Fina et al. (10.​1104/​pp.​17.​00365) demonstrate that the UV-B levels…

Hydrotropism is the curvature of a plant root towards water. Previous work showed that the hormone abscisic acid (ABA), but not the auxin transporters AUX1 and PIN, is required for hydrotropism, demonstrating that the mechanisms of hydrotropism and gravitropism are distinct. Previous work also showed…

Plant roots develop on a very heterogeneous environment surrounded by a myriad of environmental clues that can change at different spatiotemporal scales. The ability of roots to sense and respond to these clues is fundamental to ensure an efficient exploration of the rhizosphere. In this paper, Robbins…

Many agricultural lands are becoming saltier as a consequence of irrigation and sea water incursion, yet most crops are very sensitive to salt. Salt glands that accumulate and secrete salt have evolved independently at least 12 times in plants. Dassanayake and Larkin review the structure, function and…

This week we spoke to Professor Henk Hilhorst (Wageningen University and Research) about his research on desiccation tolerance in seeds and plants.   Could you begin by telling us a little about your research? I am a plant physiologist specializing in seed biology. I have a long research…

May 2017, MIT Technology Review by James Temple Reinventing Rice for a World Transformed by Climate Change UC Davis plant geneticist Pamela Ronald wants to create rice varieties that can survive in harsher conditions, including more frequent droughts. "Pamela Ronald stands in front of two rows of…

Plant reproduction is particularly sensitive to heat stress, so rising temperature is a major threat to food security.  Zhang et al. surveyed the transcriptional responses to heat stress (3 h at 37º) in Arabidopsis and identified large differences between vegetative and reproductive tissue responses…

Flooding “drowns” plants by depriving them of oxygen, leading to hypoxia and ultimately death. Ethylene-responsive transcription factors (ERFs) have been identified that induce expression of genes to support anaerobic metabolism and are critical for hypoxia survival. ERFs are selectively destabilized…

Phosphate is a limiting nutrient in soil and not very mobile, so roots respond strongly to low Pi soils by the cessation of elongation of the primary root with accompanying stimulation of lateral root and root hair production. Previously, the accumulation of iron (Fe3+) in the apoplast of root meristem…

Brassinosteroid (BR) signaling promotes growth and development by regulating gene expression through the BES1 and BZR1 transcription factors.  Nolan et al. show how plants balance growth and stress tolerance by cross-talk between the BR and autophagy pathways. Under environmental stresses, BES1 is targeted…

All organisms including plants share the tetrapyrrole biosynthesis pathway that is critical for the production of compounds such as heme and chlorophyll. During tetrapyrrole biosynthesis, coproporphyrinogen III oxidase (CPO) catalyzes the conversion of coproporphyrinogen III into protoporphyrinogen IX.…

Sentience, the capacity to feel subjectively, is considered limited to organisms that have a nervous system and a centralized brain. Plants, therefore, have been excluded from this group based on: lack of a transmission mechanism like the animal nervous system; lack of a brain; simplicity; and inability…

Many food-producing regions rely on the withdrawal of water from non-renewable underground sources, a condition called groundwater depletion for irrigation (GWD). Globally, GWD increased by 22% between 2000 and 2010. When food produced with GWD is exported, the exporting country is essentially exporting…

Waterlogging, a process by which water saturates soil, results in oxygen-deficient soil conditions and can result in massive crop loss. In order for plants to survive in waterlogged soil, shoots transport oxygen to roots through lysigenous aerenchyma, a specialized tissue type formed by ethylene-induced…

Ice formation within plants influences their physiology mechanically, hydraulically, and at a cellular level. Mechanical strain occurs as water expands during freezing and tension is induced in the remaining liquid-phase sap. Xylem cavitation is initiated upon freezing due to the low (i.e. negative)…

European grapevines (Vitis vinifera) are routinely grafted on interspecific hybrid rootstocks mainly to control infestation by phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae). Research has shown, however, that these rootstocks can also affect scion growth vigor and resistance to abiotic stresses such as drought.…

Teosinte, the ancestor of maize, grows in a range of environments in México. Teosinte parviglumis (Zea mays ssp parviglumis) is more prevalent in lowland regions while teosinte mexicana (Zea mays ssp mexicana) occupies highland territory (>2000 m above sea level). Admixture between parviglumis and…

Delaying reproduction until conditions are favorable is a key to success. FLOWERING LOCUS C is a well-known regulator of flowering that delays flowering until after winter vernalization. In the spring, FLOWERING LOCUS M (FLM) fine-tunes flowering time in response to ambient temperatures between 5ºC…

Many of the genes involved in the phosphate-stress response (PSR) have been identified from plants growing on sterile medium.  Castrillo et al. examined how the root microbiota affectthe phosphate stress response, and how phosphate affects the association between roots and microbes.  Plants deficient…

Histones are protein complexes around which genomic DNA is wrapped; post-translational modifications to histone proteins and alterations of histone protein composition affect transcription. H2A.Z is a widely conserved variant form of histone H2A that has been implicated in various forms of transcriptional…

The range of responses an individual could display is a contribution of the inheritance of gene variants that determine such responses and the environments experienced by the individual itself and prior generations (nongenetic inheritance). In this review, we discuss recent empirical data to help us…

Most cultivated tulips (Tulipa gesneriana) are produced in The Netherlands, which has a temperate climate resembling the Central Asian climate in which they originated. The growth cycle of cultivated tulips starts in autumn, when the bulbs are planted in the field. At that time, all organs, including…

Drought tolerance is a complex trait, and Avramova et al. show that there is more than one way to be drought tolerant. Specifically, they investigate the role of antioxidants in supporting leaf growth in several varieties of drought tolerant maize. As compared to the tolerant lines, drought sensitive…

Flowering at the right time of year is crucial for plant reproductive success, so in many plants the transition to reproductive growth is sensitive to daylength.  In recent years, the daylength-responsive signal that moves from leaves to the shoot apical meristem, florigen (encoded by FLOWERING LOCUS…

The ability of trees to offset carbon emissions has been questioned after a Western Sydney University study found common Australian trees are unable to store as much carbon as previously thought. Published in the Nature Climate Change journal, the research found that Australia's iconic Eucalyptus…

Farmers face falling crop yields and growing food demand. ShutterstockAndrew Borrell, The University of Queensland Climate change and extreme weather events are already impacting our food, from meat and vegetables, right through to wine. In our series on the Climate and Food, we’re looking at…

The seeds and fruits derived from the sexual reproduction of flowering plants constitute the major part of the human diet. Our capacity to generate sufficient crop yield is increasingly compromised by human population expansion, competition for land use, biodiversity loss, and global climate change.…

Dormancy (growth arrest) is a state by which seeds and plants can survive harsh conditions. Seasonal dormancy is a strategy to survive seasonally unfavorable conditions. Plants can display winter and summer dormancy. Although woody species are the main study systems for winter dormancy, herbaceous species…

Sixty years ago, the first report of isoprene (C5H8; 2-methyl-1,3-butadiene) emissions from plants was published. Isoprenes are the largest source of non-methane hydrocarbons in Earth’s atmosphere; furthermore, isoprene is reactive in atmospheric chemistry and can be converted into a variety of harmful…

There is ample evidence for rapid, long-distance communication within plants, but our understanding of how these signals are transmitted is incomplete. Choi et al. review recent advances in intercellular signal propagation via Ca2+, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and electrical signals; these “fast”…

The other day I was talking to a friend about the need to demystify plants, so that teachers feel as confident in their teaching of plant biology as they do about animal biology. I wonder if sometimes we teach plants too much in isolation, so it’s not always clear how plants relate to other organisms…

Hypoxia is a condition in which oxygen availability is insuffient to support normal cellular functions. Hypoxia is often associated with stress such as flooding, and responses to hypoxia include increased glycolytic activity and fermentation. Considine et al. review the role lf hypoxia and tissue oxygen…

Climate change could affect agricultural productivity by increasing the number of days with temperatures above 30°C that staple crops like soybean, maize and wheat will experience during a given growing season. Schauberger et al. used nine statistical models to assess future threats to US crops. They…

Autophagy is the process by which macromolecules and organelles are recycled. Previously it was shown that during leaf senescence or energy starvation, chloroplasts are degraded piecemeal by autophagy. In this work, Izumi et al. examined the role of autophagy in UVB damaged chloroplasts, using wild-type…

Plant Cell Environ. has a set of reviews on light responses. Ballaré and Pierik (10.1111/pce.12914) review The shade avoidance syndrome: Multiple signals and ecological consequences, Sheerin and Hiltbrunner (10.1111/pce.12915) review the Molecular mechanisms and ecological function of far-red light…

The cosmetic industry uses a lot of different chemicals to produce the seven or so skin care products used by the average American every day. Efforts are underway to develop renewable sources for some of these. Derikvand et al. review the chemistry and potential applications behind compounds used by…

Continuing the theme of peptide signaling, Stegmann et al. showed that a subset of the RALF (RAPID ALKALINIZATION FACTOR) family of plant peptides can negatively regulate plant immune responses. When plants are treated with flg22, a peptide epitope of bacterial flagellin, they produce reactive oxygen…

Root architecture and anatomy contribute to water uptake efficiency and plant performance under water-limitation. Prince et al. explored root anatomy in a panel of soybean, and identified metaxylem number as a key trait influencing performance under water-limiting conditions. Increases in metaxylem number…

Understanding plant responses to water deficit is crucial for the development of drought-reliance, but complicated by the different ways plant researchers induce water deficit. Starting with the premise that transcription factors are important coordinators of water-deficit responses, Seeve et al. carried…

IN BRIEF by Kathleen L. Farquharson [email protected] Limiting shoot growth is an important survival strategy for plants during times of drought; smaller leaves mean that less water is lost through transpiration and more is retained in the soil. As drought stress restricts both cell division and…

Aluminum (Al) toxicity is an important agricultural problem, limiting crop production globally. Al toxicity causes a reduction in nutrient uptake, resulting in nutritional deficiency and leading to an overall reduction in shoot biomass and crop yield. Eekhout et al. discuss Al toxicity and strategies…

Heat stress is one of the main abiotic stresses plants encounter. Jiang et al. used combined transcriptomic and proteomic data to explore the responses of grape leaves to elevated temperatures (35, 40, 45°C). Using high-throughput sequencing and the iTRAQ (isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation)…

Cadmium (Cd) is among the most toxic heavy metal to humans. Contamination of Cd in soils poses a serious threat to both crop productivity and human health in many parts of the world. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of Cd transport process will help in developing plants for soil remediation and…

Soil saline-alkalization is a major abiotic stress to agriculture worldwide, causing considerable damage to crop growth and loss of crop productivity. In alkaline soil, iron availability to plants also becomes very limiting. This paper explores the physiological and molecular mechanisms of rice plant’s…

Light is good, too much light is bad. Photosynthetic organisms can dissipate excess light through a variety of means including non-photochemical quenching. Czechowski et al. show that in Chlamydomonas perception of UV-B light via the nuclear/cytosolic receptor UVR8 induces accumulation of proteins that…

A pair of reviews in J. Exp. Bot. covers aspects of seed dormancy and germination. Steinbrecher and Leubner-Metzger (10.1093/jxb/erw428) provide an excellent introduction to materials science including stress-strain curves and Young’s Modulus, which they then apply to an understanding of the biophysics…

Chlorophyll has an aliphatic phytol side chain that anchors it to light-harvesting complexes. During senescence, chlorophyll is degraded first by the enzymatic removal of Mg to produce pheophytin, which is dephytlated by pheophytinase. Through the identification of a mutant allele with elevated enzymatic…

We’ve highlighted some of the Plant Cell papers that were widely shared, liked, blogged, retweeted and otherwise garnered high-levels of attention this year. Perhaps you can use some holiday-season quiet time to catch up on those you missed. Reviews and Perspectives Creating order from chaos: epigenome…

We’ve highlighted some of the Plant Physiology papers that were widely shared, liked, blogged, retweeted and otherwise garnered high-levels of attention this year. Perhaps you can use some of that holiday-season quiet time to catch up on those you missed. The breakaway attention-getter from Plant…

Plant cells detect gravity as a consequence of the movement of dense starch granules called statoliths when the statoctyte, the cell that encompasses, them reorients. An open question has been whether the position of the statoliths within the statocyte or the force exerted by them is the primary gravisensing…

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…