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…
Lipid Anchor: Postal Code for Proteins on the Road to Membranes
Research, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In a NutshellMajeran et al. investigate how plant cells target proteins to membrane compartments https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00523
By Wojciech Majeran, Thierry Meinnel & Carmela Giglione
Background: Living cells are encased in an oily barrier, the plasma membrane, made up of a double layer of lipids…
PLANT PROTEIN MEETS HOMER´S TROJAN HORSE
Research, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In a NutshellBy Karina van der Linde and Virginia Walbot
Background: In contrast to animals in which meiotically competent cells develop in embryos, plants switch from vegetative to reproductive growth only during flowering. In maize, the most productive cereal crop, the tassel contains male flowers in which…
Bacteria exploit autophagy for proteasome degradation and enhanced virulence in plants (Plant Cell)
Blog, Plant Science Research WeeklyAutophagy has been defined as non-specific self-eating to obtain material that will be used for key processes within the cell. Even through authophagy has been demonstrated to be very important, its role during plant-bacteria interactions is not well known. Üstün et al. examined interactions between…