Recent Posts

Review: Genome evolution in plants and the origins of innovation

Land plants have enormous diversity; however we do not fully understand how this has arisen. In this review article James Clark discusses how genome dynamics and gene loss contribute to genome evolution and the generation of diversity and complexity. He explains how genome evolution is non-homogenous…

No auxin signaling, no organogenesis

Suzuki et al. examine the effects of auxin signaling on development of the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. Hidemasa Suzuki, Hirotaka Kato, Megumi Iwano, Ryuichi Nishihama, Takayuki Kohchi Background: Land plants alternate diploid (2n) and haploid (n) generations. The plant hormone auxin regulates…

Review: Bryophytes as model systems for studying evolutionary cell and developmental biology (Plant Cell)

The development of Arabidopsis as a model system greatly advanced the field of plant cell biology by bringing in molecular approaches, so much of our conceptual foundation rests on studies from angiosperms. More recently, model bryophytes, particularly Marchantia polymorpha (liverworts) and Physcomitrium…

KARRIKIN INSENSITIVE2-dependent signaling in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha

Mizuno et al. show that genes in the KARRIKIN INSENSITIVE2-dependent signaling pathway are conserved in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha and control early development of the thallus. Yohei Mizuno and Junko Kyozuka Background: Plants hormones play crucial roles in growth and development. Karrikins…