Tag: Development

Fukudome et al. explore the significance of Pol II C-terminal phosphorylation https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00331 By Akihito Fukudome and Hisashi Koiwa Background: In animals and plants, gene expression begins with an enzyme called RNA polymerase II (Pol II), which produces ribonucleic acid (RNA)…

Dolan et al. examine how a complex that regulates gene expression alters the production of phenylpropanoids  https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00282 By Whitney Dolan and Clint Chapple Background: Plants produce a vast array of compounds known as phenylpropanoids from the amino acid phenylalanine.…

Polarization may be bad for civil discourse, but sometimes polarization can be good—for example, if you’re a multicellular organism setting its body axes. In many organisms, polarity within the zygote sets the stage for an asymmetric cell division that defines the apical-basal polarity of the developing…

Brambilla et al. describe antagonistic signals in rice leaves that control flowering https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00645 By Vittoria Brambilla Background: A plant’s lifecycle is marked by a major switch occurring when the plant stops producing leaves and starts to make flowers. This switch is…

The formation of the lobes at the Arabidopsis leaf margin are due to differences in local auxin accumulation, coordinated by auxin efflux carrier (PIN1) and transcriptional regulator (CUC2), but the molecular mechanisms acting upstream are not yet understood. Among viable leaf shape mutants, Wilson-Sanchez…

By Charlotte M.M. Gommers and Elena Monte Abstract By being exquisitely sensitive to their light surroundings, plants are able to continuously adjust their growth to optimize fitness. Darkness is an important cue for plants and a time when they actively grow and develop through regulation of the…

The coordinated differentiation of cell types during the metamorphosis of an organ is crucial for ensuring that the final form of the organ is appropriate for itsfunction.  A case in point is the photosynthetic function of plant leaves that requires chloroplast-containing cells in the middle leaf layers…

Root angle determines the rooting depth and was recently associated with the VERNALIZATION1 locus. Using hexaploid wheat, Voss-Fels et al. mapped the root angle to the locus encoding the MADS-box transcription factor, which was previously associated with flowering time. The group found that the lines…