Recent Posts

Highly Diverse Plant Immune Receptors Form a Species-wide Reservoir of New Recognition Specificities

Prigozhin and Krasileva identify highly variable NLR subfamilies responsible for the generation of new immune receptor specificities. The Plant Cell (2021)   By Daniil M. Prigozhin1 and Ksenia V. Krasileva2 1Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 2University of California Berkeley  Background:…

The Battle Between Modifications on Chromatin

Dong, LeBlanc, Poulet et al. investigate genomic stability in Arabidopsis. The Plant Cell (2020) https://bit.ly/3nhgdQ5  By Jie Dong, Chantal LeBlanc, Axel Poulet, and Yannick Jacob  Background: DNA is the genetic material used by all living organisms on Earth. The faithful replication of DNA…

Changing the Shape of the Apex via Cell-size Regulation

Wang et al. demonstrate that Arabidopsis SAUR17 promotes apical hook development and closed cotyledons in the dark by protecting the cell-expansion inhibitor PP2C-D1. The Plant Cell (2020) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00283   By Jiajun Wang, Ning Sun, Fangfang Zhang, Renbo Yu, Haodong Chen,…

SUMOylation and the Regulation of Aluminum Resistance

Fang and Zhang et al. show that SUMOylation and deSUMOylation regulate the stability of a transcription factor, thereby influencing aluminum resistance in Arabidopsis. Descriptive paragraph. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00687 Background: Aluminum (Al) is a primary constraint for crop…

Sometimes “jammed paper” can be a good thing: functional interactions between pectins and cellulose in the plant cell wall

Du et al. explore how pectins interact with cellulose in the plant cell wall. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00252 By Juan Du1 and Charles T. Anderson2,3 1Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu…

Plant Metabolic Redox Dynamics–Live!

Steinbeck et al. investigate in vivo NAD redox dynamics in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00241 By Janina Steinbeck and Markus Schwarzländer Background: All organisms rely on their cellular metabolism to live, develop, grow, and procreate. Metabolism provides the energy,…

A Geminivirus Exploits the Host Machinery to Inhibit Methylation-mediated Defense Responses

Chen et al. uncover a strategy used by a DNA geminivirus to exploit the host machinery in order to inhibit methylation-mediated defense responses when establishing infection. The Plant Cell (2020) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00249.  Background: Geminiviruses belong to one of the largest and most…