
Pathogenic Bacteria Use A “Self-Eating” Process to Trick Plants
Research, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In a NutshellÜstün et al. show that pathogenic Pseudomonas enhances the autophagic turnover of proteins in Arabidopsis https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00815.
By Suayib Üstün and Daniel Hofius
Background: Autophagy and the proteasome are the major pathways for protein degradation in eukaryotes. While the…

Clathrin-Mediated Endocytosis: Plant Homologs of the Clathrin Uncoating Factor Auxilin
Research, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In a NutshellAdamowski et al. use CRISPR to investigate the function of plant auxilin proteins https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00785.
By Maciek Adamowski
Background: Endocytosis is one of the basic pathways of cellular trafficking. By endocytosis, proteins located in the plasma membranes, for instance receptors,…

Turnover of Tonoplast Proteins
Plant Physiology, Plant Physiology: News and ViewsBy Rumen Ivanov and David G. Robinson
Our knowledge of vacuole biogenesis and the transport of proteins to the vacuole has advanced consistently over the last 30 years. In meristematic cells, the tonoplast appears to develop directly out of the endoplasmic reticulum (Viotti et al., 2013). Once it is…

Live and Let Die: Phosphatidic Acid Modulates the Self-Incompatibility Response
Research, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In BriefPollen tubes are remarkable vehicles that deliver immobile sperm nuclei from the stigma to the ovule during angiosperm reproduction. Their journey delicately balances turgor pressure with the precise spatiotemporal regulation of polarized growth machinery to navigate pollen tubes and their cargo to the…

Divide and Conquer: High-Throughput Screening of Chlamydomonas Cell Cycle Mutants
Blog, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In BriefCell division is essential for growth and reproduction. The cell cycle machinery is well conserved between yeast and animals, but whether this conservation extends to the plant lineage is not clear, having diverged over two billion years ago: ample time and opportunity for divergence in sequence and…

Gravisensors in plant cells behave like an active granular liquid (PNAS)
Plant Science Research WeeklyWhen you try to tip rocks out of a bucket, nothing happens until the steepness of the angle is sufficient to start them shifting (the “avalanche angle”). By contrast, water starts moving with even the slightest tilt to the bucket. Now think about the gravity sensing particles in plant cells, starch-rich…

Plant exosomes mediate cross-kingdom RNA interference ($) (Science)
Plant Science Research WeeklySmall RNAs (sRNAs) trafficking between host plant and pathogens can occur in a wide range on interactions. Pathogen-produced sRNAs have been shown to suppress host plant immunity, and conversely host plant-derived sRNAs can reduce pathogen virulence by targeting pathogenic genes of the pest. Nevertheless,…

The repetitive effector Rsp3 promotes the virulence of the corn smut fungus Ustilago maydis
Plant Science Research WeeklyThe corn smut fungus Ustilago maydis manipulates maize tissues and cells through the secretion of effectors that modulate host protein activities. In a recent article published in Nature Communications, Ma et al. characterize a highly repetitive effector protein family (Rsp3, repetitive secreted protein…

Small Peptide PSK Induces Plant Immunity Against Botrytis cinerea
Research, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In a NutshellZhang et al. show how PSK initiates Ca2+- and auxin-dependent immunity https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00537.
By Huan Zhang, Zhangjian Hu and Kai Shi
Background: During plant-microbe interactions, some small secreted peptides are secreted into the apoplast between plant cells as damage-associated…