Tag: Genetics

Transposable elements (TEs) are a major component of eukaryotic genomes. Their activity is silenced by epigenetic mechanisms such as chromatin modifications and DNA methylation in order to avoid deleterious effects on host genome stability. Nevertheless, how TEs overcome silencing by the host and propagate…

Yan et al. searched for proteins that regulate the delivery of the micronutrient copper to flowers to ensure successful reproduction https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00363 By Jiapei Yan, Ju-Chen Chia, and Olena Vatamaniuk Background: Global food security and the demand for high-yielding grain crops…

Experiments using large germplasm collections are prone to contamination. With dropping sequencing costs, it becomes easier to validate the genotype using minimal sequencing coverage. Pisupati and colleagues developed an open-source python pipeline, called SNPmatch, allowing identification of 930 Arabidopsis…

Plants have several mechanisms to protect themselves from damage from excess light, including a set of reactions collectively described as non-photochemical quenching or NPQ. One of these is a sustained and slowly reversible form of NPQ, which the authors have named qH. How this sustained NPQ functions…

Plants lack a developmentally defined germline and gametes originate only late during plant development. This allows mutations acquired during the vegetative growth (somatic mutations) to be transmitted to the reproductive organs. The accumulation of mutations is relatively low in annual plants such…

Humans have been domesticating plants for 10,000 years, having an impact on the gene pools of multiple species chiefly through selective breeding approaches. Although plant domestication ensured food availability to early civilizations, plants were, and still are, mainly selected based on their morphology…

The ability to generate transgenic plants has revolutionised plant science research.  However, many species and genotypes remain challenging and time-consuming to transform.  Zhao et al. provide a novel and potentially ground-breaking method of transgene delivery.  In the presence of a magnetic field,…

Assessing the function of genes active in zygotes and egg cells is difficult due to the inaccessibility of the target tissues.  Koiso et al. isolated rice egg cells and maize zygotes using a method similar to that for extracting leaf protoplasts.  They then optimized a PEG-Ca2+ transfection protocol…