Tag: Gene Regulation

Kiba et al. focus on transcriptional regulation of nitrogen starvation responses. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00810 By Takatoshi Kiba Background: Nitrogen availability in the soil profoundly affects plant growth and productivity, and thus crop yield. To meet expanding food demands,…

Ma et al. investigate a protein complex that controls steady-state mRNA circadian oscillations  https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00052  By Yuan Ma, Sergio Gil, Klaus D. Grasser and Paloma Mas Background: Circadian clocks are internal time-keeping mechanisms that help organisms to adapt to the…

Bastakis et al. investigate control of the greening process in Arabidopsis https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00947. By Emmanouil Bastakis Background: The greening of the plants is based on the synthesis and accumulation of the chlorophylls, which takes place in chloroplasts. Chlorophylls capture…

Dixon et al. (2018) investigate the regulation of wheat inflorescence architecture by TEOSINTE BRANCHED1. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00961 Background: Grass inflorescences are composed of many seed-producing flowers (or florets) that are arranged on branches called spikelets. The number…

Auxin Response Factors (ARFs) are transcription factors that bind to ARF binding sites (ARFbs) to mediate auxin responses. Stigliani et al. analzyed experimentally determined DNA interactions of two ARFs, the repressor ARF2 and the activator MP.  They found that the binding site data are best interpreted…

Here’s a fascinating story; starting with an association study, Xie et al. found that a protein previously identified as an enzyme involved in phenylpropanoid metabolism (specifically, 5-enolpyruvylshikimate 3-phosphate synthase, EPSP) also acts as a transcriptional regulator of this pathway, not only…

Plant Physiol. Nicotine is a NAD-related secondary alkaloid found in high concentration in the leaves of the tetraploid tobacco plant (Nicotiana tabacum). The recent sequencing of the N. tabacum genome allowed a comprehensive analysis of genes involved in NAD and nicotine biosynthesis. The analysis…

One of the most exciting findings in the past few decades is the discovery that individual mRNAs and noncoding RNAs can act as long-distance signaling messengers traveling cell to cell to distant sites in the plant. Numerous examples unveiled the involvement of endogenous RNAs as non-cell-autonomous…