Tag: Bioenergetics

Science In Real Life (IRL) is an educational YouTube series that’s here to show you how textbook science concepts come to life in the lab. Since each episode revolves around an experiment that a scientist does every day in the lab or field, our viewers also get to see what being a scientist is like,…

A seed undergoes a dramatic transformation from dried tissues into a mature plant.  This change requires energy produced by oxidative metabolism, but dry seeds contain dormant promitochondria that need to be reactivated.  Paszkiewicz et al. use bioimaging tools for an in vivo analysis of seed mitochondria…

Efficient photosynthesis demands that plants have the capacity to capture photons when they are scarce, but at the same time not suffer damage from capturing more light energy than they are able to assimilate. To accomplish this, leaves need to be able to differentiate between a steady light level and…

Saline soils are an ever growing problem, whether due to seawater incursions, for example in Bangladesh, or due to the rising water table in Australia. Salinity is harmful in three ways: non-specific osmotic effects, excess Na+, and excess Cl–. Of these, chloride has received the least attention. Li…

The AVP1 gene encodes a proton-pumping pyrophosphatase (H+-PPase) localized to the vacuolar membrane, which means that it pumps H+ into the vacuole using energy stored in pyrophosphatase (PPi). The direct consequences of its action are the acidification of the vacuole and the removal of PPi from the…

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 germinated pollen grain extends a pollen tube through the stigma and style of the flower to deliver two sperm cells to an ovule.  Tip-directed growth of the pollen tube requires a large energy input, but how does the pollen tube obtain energy while growing through the flower tissues?  Goetz et al.…

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…