Genome-wide excision repair in Arabidopsis is coupled to transcription and reflects circadian gene expression patterns (Nature Comms)
Plant Science Research WeeklyExposure to ultraviolet radiation and numerous other factors can cause mispairing of the nucleotides in the DNA, compromising genome integrity. Luckily, plants employ excision repair systems to recognize and repair such DNA damage. Oztas et al. examined the dynamics of such a repair system by using excision…
Recognizing featured Plant Cell first authors: André N. Müller
Blog, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: Author ProfilesAndré N. Müller, featured first author of The Biotrophic Development of Ustilago maydis Studied by RNA-Seq Analysis
Current Position: Project Manager, GSK Vaccines GmbH, Marburg
Education: PhD in Molecular Phytopathology, Department of Organismic Interactions, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial…
Commentary. 10KP: A phylodiverse genome sequencing plan (GigaScience)
Plant Science Research WeeklyNobody doubts the great insights we have gained about plant diversity and evolution from genome sequencing, but the patchy nature of available genomes within the plant phylogeny remains a problem. Cheng et al. describe the 10KP (10,000 Plants) Genome Sequencing Project, which aims to sequence genomes…
Transcriptome landscape of a bacterial pathogen under plant immunity (PNAS)
Plant Science Research WeeklyMany studies have examined how plants respond transcriptionally to pathogen attack. This study investigates how a bacterial pathogen [Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (Pto)] alters its transcriptome very early in the infection process. To accomplish this, Nobori et al. developed two methods to…
Initiation of meiotic recombination is regulated by epigenetic marks and chromatin structure (Genome Res.)
BlogMeiotic recombination is an important source of genetic diversity by allowing the reshuffling of parental alleles during meiosis. It requires the generation of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) initiated by the activity of the SPO11 protein complex. In plants, the impact of chromatin structure and DNA…
Trust but Verify: A Lesson in Technology Limitations and Error Propagation
Blog, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In BriefBy C. Robin Buell
Unlike molecular biology techniques that are routinely used in individual investigator labs, the high cost of infrastructure historically has resulted in genome sequencing being performed at genome centers in which quality control and quality assessments are a mainstay, and it is…
The subgenomes of polyploid plants evolve at different rates (Plant Cell)
Plant Science Research WeeklyPolyploidy can result either through genome doubling followed by intraspecific crosses, or when two genomes from independent species hybridize, leading to autopolyploidy, or allopolyploidy, respectively. Polyploidy is an important evolutionary tool; the resultant redundancy from the duplication of genes…
High contiguity Arabidopsis thaliana genome assembly with a single nanopore flow cell (Nature Comms)
Plant Science Research WeeklyEvery now and then a technology arrives on the scene that suddenly makes everything easier. When I was a student, PCR was developed. More recently, CRISPR/Cas9 applications were developed, and now the hot tool is nanopore flow cell sequencing. The crucial advancement in this method is that rather than…
Genomewide association study of ionomic traits on diverse soybean populations from germplasm collections
Plant Science Research WeeklyGermplasm collections are invaluable resources for plant science and the elemental content of the seeds is a strong indication of the plant’s response to its specific environment. In this study, Ziegler et al. have selected 1,653 soybean accessions from the USDA Soybean Germplasm Collection and seeds…