Recent Posts

Endosidin20 targets the cellulose synthase catalytic domain to inhibit cellulose biosynthesis (Plant Cell)

Cellulose is an indispensable component of plant cell wall formation. Cellulose is synthesized at the plasma membrane by a cellulose synthase complex (CSC) made up of at least 18 monomeric cellulose synthases (CESAs). In this study, Huang et al. used a chemical genetic approach to explore the structure…

Cell Wall Remodeling During Wood Development

Madeleine Seale Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RB, United Kingdom maddy.seale@plants.ox.ac.uk ORCID: 0000-0002-8924-3943 Wood formation occurs via radial proliferation of vascular cambium cells and the deposition of secondary cell wall layers…

Another Brick in the Plant Cell Wall: Characterization of Arabidopsis CSLD3 Function in Cell Wall Synthesis

Plant cell walls are one of the great engineering feats of nature, providing immense structural strength and durability. The core components of plant cell walls (pectin, hemicellulose, and cellulose) can occur in different proportions and vary in their structure and assembly, thus allowing cell walls…

Newly identified miRNAs may contribute to aerenchyma formation in sugarcane roots (Plant Direct)

Sugarcane is one of the major crops for sugar and ethanol production and has been successfully used for first generation ethanol production through sucrose fermentation, but second generation ethanol production, through cell wall depolymerization, is still limited. Aerenchyma formation in sugarcane root…

Unlocking interspecies grafting (bioRxiv)

Plant grafting is an agricultural technique that joins plant tissues (e.g., the shoot and root) to confer beneficial traits from one plant to another. Although interfamily grafting is difficult in general, Notaguchi et al. found that Nicotiana benthamiana (Nb) has a strong potential to graft with phylogenetically…

A two-way molecular dialogue between embryo and endosperm is required for seed development ($) (Science)

During seed formation, the developing embryo becomes covered with a water-impermeable cuticle. Several Arabidopsis mutants have been identified that are defective in cuticle formation and provide a framework for how it is formed. Doll et al. have added a missing piece to this puzzle. Briefly, embryo…

Genetic contribution of paleopolyploidy to adaptive evolution in angiosperms (Mol Plant)

Genetic contribution of paleopolyploidy to adaptive evolution in angiosperms Comparative genomics has revealed that the angiosperms have experienced numerous whole-genome duplications (WGD), which have been proposed to have contributed to their global dominance. Following WGD, many of the…

OsKNAT7 bridges secondary cell wall formation and cell growth regulation

The plant cell wall is a complex structure composed of cellulose embedded in a matrix of polysaccharides (hemicellulose and pectin), phenolic compounds and proteins. The primary cell wall is a thin layer formed in growing cells and is present ubiquitously, whereas the secondary cell wall is a rigid and…

Seeing the Cell Wall in a New Light

Sidney L. Shaw Dept. of Biology (and Physics), Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405 sishaw@indiana.edu   How cell expansion is controlled to achieve a specific cell morphology remains one of the frontier questions in plant biology.  The carefully guided extension of the plant…