Decoding the signaling precision of receptor-MAPK pathways
Plant Science Research WeeklyHave you ever wondered how cells distinguish between the diverse array of external signals traveling through similar pathways? To understand the intricacies of plant signaling mechanisms, Ma et al. used single endodermal cells of Arabidopsis roots as a model to compare two receptor pathways. One pathway…
Casparian strip formation at root endodermal and non-endodermal cell layers in rice
The Plant Cell: In a NutshellZhang et al. investigate the role of the OsCIF1/2–OsSGN3a/b signaling pathway in Casparian strip formation in rice.
https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koad269
By Jixing Xia, of Life Science and Technology, Guangxi University, China.
Background: The Casparian strip (CS) is a belt-like lignin-based…
Novel lignin-based extracellular barrier in glandular trichome
Plant Science Research WeeklyThis is a fascinating story by Hao et al., which takes us from phenotype to novel insights by looking at glandular trichomes in cucumber. Cucumber fruits often have a silica-based white powder deposited on their surface, but this is missing from the yellow green peel (ygp) mutant. Staining shows that…
A dirigent protein complex directs lignin polymerization and assembly of the root diffusion barrier
Plant Science Research WeeklyIn Latin, dirigere means “to align or guide”, so in 1997 when a protein was identified that guides the stereoselectivity of another enzyme it was named as a dirigent protein. Subsequent studies found that the Arabidopsis genome encodes 25 dirigent proteins (DPs). In this new work, Gao et al. characterized…