Tag: Gene Regulation

Aflatoxins are toxic metabolites produced by some species of Aspergillus fungi that can occur on numerous crop plants. When ingested by animals, aflatoxins cause health problems including liver cancer and stunted growth. Thakare et al. used host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) to block aflatoxin production…

Delaying reproduction until conditions are favorable is a key to success. FLOWERING LOCUS C is a well-known regulator of flowering that delays flowering until after winter vernalization. In the spring, FLOWERING LOCUS M (FLM) fine-tunes flowering time in response to ambient temperatures between 5ºC…

Growth and cell proliferation at the shoot and root apexes are regulated by diverse factors including hormones, nutrients, and light. Previously, the protein kinase TOR (Target of Rapamycin), a transducer of glucose energy signals, was shown to phosphorylate and activate the transcription factor E2Fa,…

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. By Kevin M. Folta, University of Florida   Driving down a country highway in the Midwest can seem an endless ribbon flanked by green walls of corn, neatly planted in stately rows. But who would guess…

The patterning of stomata in epidermal tissues involves both positive and negative cues, as revealed by the phenotypes of mutants including too many mouths and speechless, but the precise interactions between identified gene products are still not fully resolved. Qi et al. explore the interactions between…

Histones are protein complexes around which genomic DNA is wrapped; post-translational modifications to histone proteins and alterations of histone protein composition affect transcription. H2A.Z is a widely conserved variant form of histone H2A that has been implicated in various forms of transcriptional…

Clocks in green algae have been described as simple two-gene loops, while clocks in angiosperms have evolved to complex interlocked loops. This striking jump in complexity led Linde et al. to investigate the clocks in bryophytes and charophytes to shed light on this transition. First, through the sequence…

Structural biology provides a key link between genotype and phenotype. Hirano et al. probe the structure of a heterodimer of plant-specific GRAS family transcriptional regulators [SHORT-ROOT (SHR) and SCARECROW (SCR)] as bound to the transcription factor JACKDAW (JKD). The GRAS family proteins (encoded…