Emergence of the Ug99 lineage of the wheat stem rust pathogen through somatic hybridization (Nature Comms)
Plant Science Research WeeklyThe Ug99 strain of wheat stem rust pathogen Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici (Pgt) emerged in Uganda in 1999 and presents a significant threat to global wheat production. Genetic analysis indicates it is distinct from other Pgt races. Li et al. set out to understand its origins. Puccinia graminis are…
Pollination of Cretaceous flowers (PNAS)
Plant Science Research WeeklyLike something from Jurassic Park, a tiny insect embedded in amber has provided new insights into life millions of years ago. But in this case, the 99 million year old insect shows us that, as Darwin surmised, insects really were important contributors to angiosperm pollination from their origins. In…
Essay: Reconstructing trait evolution in plant evo–devo studies (Curr. Biol.)
Plant Science Research WeeklyPlant evo-devo studies are thriving thanks to new genetic engineering tools and the emergence of model systems such as the moss Physcomitrella patens, the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, and the fern Ceratopteris richardii. In the past few years many debates have taken place among the community, in…
Review: An evolutionary history of genes controlling carpel development (COPB)
Plant Science Research WeeklyCarpels, the female reproductive structures in angiosperms, are the most complex organs in plants. Most of the current knowledge about the molecular mechanism underlying carpel development derives from Arabidopsis. In a new review, Becker summarizes recent studies about the reconstruction of ancestral…
New insights into Marchantia polymorpha genome
Plant Science Research WeeklySince the publication of the Marchantia polymorpha genome in 2017, a big update was necessary. In the past week, two groups published on improving Marchantia chromosome assembly following different experimental approaches. Diop et al. made a high-density linkage map using genetic markers obtained by…
A conserved signaling module controls tip growth in liverwort and Arabidopsis (Curr. Biol).
Plant Science Research WeeklyPlants have evolved with rooting cells to anchor them to the land and uptake nutrients efficiently. Growth of root hairs in seed plants or rhizoids in early diverging plants both rely on tip growth, which requires a coordination of wall loosening and deposition of wall materials with cell expansion in…
Mesostigma viride genome and transcriptome provide insights into the origin and evolution of Streptophyta (Adv. Sci)
Plant Science Research WeeklyMulticellularity has arisen independently many times across the eukaryotic tree of life (e.g., in plants, animals and fungi). Comparisons of green algae with land plants is likely to identify the genetic toolkit of multicellularity as well as the colonization of terrestrial habitats. Here, Liang et al.…
On the origin of oxygenic photosynthesis and cyanobacteria (New Phytol)
Plant Science Research WeeklyPhotosynthesis occurs in several ways, only one of which releases oxygen as a product. As oxygen-breathing organisms, we are totally dependent on oxygenic photosynthesis, which is restricted to cyanobacteria and green plant plastids. In this review, Sánchez‐Baracaldo and Cardona examine how recent…
Replaying the evolutionary tape to investigate subgenome dominance in allopolyploid Brassica napus (bioRxiv)
Plant Science Research WeeklyFollowing interspecific hybridization, one of the two parental genomes (aka subgenomes) tends to become dominant (more highly retained and expressed). What determines which of the subgenomes will become dominant, or is it random? To explore this question, Bird et al. made several crosses between Brassica…