Recent Posts

Opinion: Plant hormones: Key players in gut microbiota and human diseases?

Chanclud and Lacombe have written an intriguing Opinion article asking to what extent plant hormones affect animal gut microbiota and human disease. In support of this question, they observe that many microbes and even some animals can perceive and respond to plant hormones, or produce plant-hormone…

Three-dimensional analysis of chloroplast structures associated with virus infection

It’s not uncommon for viruses to manipulate the host’s membrane system to create protected structures for viral replication. These viral replication complexes (VRCs) “are thought to shield viruses from host defense systems such as RNA silencing, and … provide a microenvironment for enriching…

MicroRNAs from the parasitic plant Cuscuta campestris target host messenger RNAs

There’s only one thing worse than having a parasite suck the life juices out of you, and that’s having a parasite suck the life juices out of you while simultaneously injecting you with miRNAs to increase your vulnerability. Shahid et al. looked at microRNAs isolated from dodder (Cuscuta campestris),…

Review: Plant signaling and metabolic pathways enabling arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis ($)

The relationship between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi has persisted for 400 million years, but we are still learning about the biochemistry of this interaction. MacLean, Bravo and Harrison review how plants attract, recognize, and accommodate their fungal partners, from pre-contact through…

VPS9a activates the Rab5 GTPase ARA7 to confer distinct pre- and post-invasive plant innate immunity ($)

Fungal invasion exploits plant cell membrane trafficking components. For instance, plant immunity against fungi such as Vlumeria graminis f.sp. hordei (Bgh) is defined through two stages: pre- and post-invasive immunity. Nielsen et al. found that Vacuolar Protein Sorting 9a (VPS9a) acts as a guanine…

Review: Next-generation insect-resistant plants: RNAi-mediated crop protection ($)

0 Comments
/
Insects compete directly with people for the energy and nutrients contained in plant matter, so it’s crucial for future food security to develop safe, effective and inexpensive means to control insect pests on crop plants. Zhang et al. review progress in using plant-mediated RNA interference (RNAi)…

Review: Lessons in effector and NLR biology of plant-microbe systems

Two of the key players in the plant-pathogen interaction are the effectors produced by pathogens (that “modulate plant physiology to favor host infection and colonization”) and the plant immune receptors (including NLR proteins: nucleotide-binding domain and leucine-rich repeatcontaining) that are…

Ash dieback epidemic in Europe: How can molecular technologies help?

0 Comments
/
The fungal pathogen  Hymenoscyphus fraxineus that infects European ash (Fraxinus excelsior) has caused a huge epidemic and cost millions of trees their lives. Downie describes the employment of molecular techniques to trace the origin of the fungus in Europe, and describes how the fungal life cycle…

Rgsr8.1, a new quantitative trait locus conferring resistance to Gibberella stalk rot in maize

0 Comments
/
Gibberella stalk rot (GSR) is a fungal disease of maize.  Through QTL-seq, a whole genome sequencing method, Chen et al. identified a new resistance quantitative trait locus (QTL) Rgsr8.1 that confers broad-spectrum resistance to GSR. Two candidate genes were identified, one encoding an auxin response…