Tag: Gene Regulation

Zhang et al. show that a single-nucleotide polymorphism in a hairpin RNA promoter contributes to Alternaria alternata leaf spot resistance in apple and could serve as a marker to distinguish susceptible versus resistant apple cultivars. https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00042. Background: Apple Alternaria…

Irmisch et al. investigate enzymes of the ornamental plant montbretia involved in a complex flavonoid biosynthetic system relevant to human health. https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00406   Background: Type-2 diabetes is a major health challenge of the 21st century requiring new treatments. Plants produce…

Thousands of years of artificial selection have produced rice plants (Oryza sativa) that are vastly different from their wild progenitor species in terms of architecture, yield, and resilience. Most of the genetic changes linked to rice domestication involved genes encoding transcription factors. However,…

Zeins are maize seed storage proteins, but are notoriously low in the amino acids lycine and tryptophan. Therefore, to improve maize's nutritional properties, efforts have been made to decrease zein levels. However, such efforts often lead to abnormal (opague) kernels. Previous work has demonstrated…

I guess we're well past the stage of thinking "one gene - one protein", but even a single polypeptide isn't really one protein, due to the huge number of different types of post-translational modification (PTM) it can be subjected to. These are summarized in the illustration that accompanies the editorial…

Just like the epigenome is the collection of epigenetic marks on DNA, the epitranscriptome is the collection of epigenetic marks on mRNA. Vandivier and Gregory review our current understanding of the epitranscriptome, with a focus on N6-methyladenosine (m6A) and 5-methylcytosine (m5C), and their various…

Plants regularly prioritize either growth or defense, leading to reduced growth rate when the plant is under attack. Wang et al. have identified a simple switch  in rice that demonstrates this principle beautifully. The Ideal Plant Architecture 1 (IPA1) transcription factor is involved in controlling…

Zizhen et al. perform electron tomography and correlative gene expression analyses of thylakoid assembly in greening Arabidopsis cotyledons Plant Cell (2018) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00972 By Byung-Ho Kang Background: The chloroplast produces carbohydrates and molecular oxygen from water,…