Tag: Epigenetics

Pelayo et al. explore the function of a biological timer that activates key genes for flowering. Margaret Anne Pelayo, Nara Institute of Science and Technology https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koad123 Background: For flowers to form, the floral meristem (floral stem cells) must irreversibly commit…

Increasing plant resistance to specific pathogens through genome editing is a very active branch of crop engineering. In a recent paper, Veley et al. propose to edit the epigenome to boost resistance to cassava bacterial blight by increasing the levels of DNA methylation at specific sites, while leaving…

Chromatin remodellers are highly conserved eukaryotic proteins with regulatory roles in various aspects of DNA metabolism including DNA repair, gene expression and mitosis. Here, Kang et al. examine the function of the CHROMATIN REMODELLING19 (CHR19) in Arabidopsis thaliana. Using two T-DNA insertion…

Dr. Thelma Madzima (she/her) is one of very few Black faculty in the USA who are plant molecular biologists. Originally from Zimbabwe, Thelma immigrated to the US at the age of 17 to attend college. She received her B.S. in Plant Science and Plant Biotechnology from Fort Valley State University, a historically…

Transgenerational memory can occur through epigenetic regulation of gene expression (for example through DNA methylation) when plants have been exposed to abiotic stresses. Transferring a specific biochemical adaption to the next generation of plants can help the plant counter stress. Here Xu et al.…

By Hernán López and Klaus Theres, Max Planck institute for Plant Breeding Research.  López and colleagues identify the gene mutated in the tomato super determinant (sde) mutant, which affects vegetative shoot branching, but not seed set. Background: The degree of shoot branching is an important…

Kinser and colleagues explore the transcriptomic, genomic and epigenomic consequences of mixing two genomes with the same number or twice as many chromosomes in monkeyflower.  By Taliesin Kinser (University of Florida) and Joshua Puzey (College of William and Mary) Background: Flowering plants…

PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTORS (PIFs) play a pivotal role in mediating the responses of plants to various environmental stimuli. Although the importance of PIFs in shade avoidance response is well known, the relative contributions of different PIFs have not been discretely determined. In a recent study,…