Tag: Development

The capacity of plants to regenerate new shoots from differentiated tissue – a process called de novo shoot regeneration – confers plasticity to plant development and has also important agricultural applications. Previous studies revealed that DNA METHYLTRANSFERASE1 (MET1) inhibits shoot regeneration…

Despite vast differences across all living organisms, most eukaryotes display some form of cellular polarity which enables them to carry out specialized functions. The coordination of cell polarity within a single tissue layer is known as planar polarity. Nakamura and Grebe highlight the unique execution…

The arrangement of a plant’s root system in the soil (root system architecture, RSA) changes in response to nutrients through different signaling pathways. It is assumed that RSA adapts to optimize the uptake of nutrients from the environment, but strong evidence is still lacking. This review by Shahzad…

Lateral root development in plants is a complex process that involves co-ordination of several molecular components to initiate the formation of meristematic cells. Uncovering the details of these processes is confounded by functional redundancy and tight cyclic regulation of different components in…

Schneider et al. explore how secondary cell walls are made. The Plant Cell 2017.  https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00309 Background: Plant cells are surrounded by robust cell walls that function as dynamic extracellular skeletons and protect plants against their environment. The cell walls make up…

Fusari et al. perform GWAS to explore primary plant metabolism https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00232 By Corina M. Fusari and Rik Kooke Background: Primary metabolites such as sugars, organic acids, and amino acids are essential chemical compounds that drive plant growth and development by providing…

Walker et al. explore how the environment shapes root architecture. The Plant Cell 2017.  https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.16.00961 By Liam Walker Background: To acquire nutrients and anchor themselves, plant roots spread both vertically and horizontally in soil. Plants typically have a primary root…

Seeds integrate environmental information and trigger molecular pathways that help with the decision making process of whether to germinate or not. Several studies in numerous species have shown details of global transcriptomic changes during germination. However, Narsai et al. dig a little deeper. By…