Review: Entering the next dimension - plant genomes in 3D (Trends Plant Sci)
Plant Science Research WeeklyThe three-dimensional arrangement of DNA within the nucleus clearly affects gene expression, but its contribution remains relatively unexplored as compared to other factors. Sotelo-Silveira et al. review new chromosome conformation capture (3C) and derived techniques for assessing genomes in 3D, as well…
Response to persistent ER stress in plants (Plant Cell)
Plant Science Research WeeklyA key question in plant stress physiology is how the plant perceives stress in order to mitigate its effects. Heat (and other) stress can lead to an accumulation of unfolded or misfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum, which initiates the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), leading to a change in…
Plant scientists use big data to map stress responses in corn
Blog, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: NewsIowa State University
AMES, Iowa – Plant scientists at Iowa State University have completed a new study that describes the genetic pathways at work when corn plants respond to stress brought on by heat, a step that could lead to crops better capable of withstanding stress.
The findings, published…
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…