Genetic gains underpinning a little-known strawberry Green Revolution
Plant Science Research WeeklyThe domestication of cultivated strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) traces back approximately 300 years, providing us with a relatively comprehensive genealogy of this artificial hybrid species. Strawberry yield in the US has increased by 2,755% since the 1960’s, largely owing to the California strawberry…
Review: Synthetic algal genomes
Plant Science Research WeeklyAs photosynthetic organisms, algae can harness solar energy to do useful things, from environmental cleanup to producing fuels and other beneficial molecules. This review by Goold et al. provides an overview of how algae can be valuable platforms for synthetic biology and metabolic engineering through…
The Marchantia transcription factor atlas
Plant Science Research WeeklyMarchantia’s power as a model organism continues to grow! Here, Ramoni et al. have investigated the expression pattern of the proximal promoters of most of its 450 transcription factor (TF)-encoding genes. The promoter elements were fused to nuclear-localized fluorescent reporters and introduced into…
Spotlight: Super-pangenomes for improved breeding
Plant Science Research WeeklySometimes more really is better, and I think it’s safe to say that when it comes to genomic information, more is better. Here, Raza et al. highlight the great value of super-pangenomes. A pan-genome is defined as the entire set of genes within a species, created by combining sequences of many individuals.…
When and how did carrots turn orange?
Plant Science Research WeeklyCarrots were not always orange, and a new paper by Coe, Bostan, Rolling et al. sheds new light into the history of carrot domestication and improvement, i.e., how we went from white, knotty carrots to the orange, smooth ones that are now consumed all over the world. The authors published a new version…
Review: Complementing model species with model clades
Plant Science Research WeeklyWithout doubt, Arabidopsis thaliana has thoroughly demonstrated its usefulness as a model species. In this interesting article by Mabry et al. (with an impressive author list!), the authors propose to expand the Arabidopsis toolkit to encompass its entire order – its family of families, the Brassicales.…
Identifying candidates from genome wide association studies using gene orthologs
Plant Science Research WeeklyGenome wide association studies (GWAS) identify genomic loci associated with a specific trait. However, these loci often contain many genes, so selecting which to investigate further can be tricky. To improve this Whitt, et al. developed a program called FiReMAGE (filtering results of multi-species,…
Genetic architecture of heterostyly and domestication history of common buckwheat
Plant Science Research WeeklyCommon buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is a self-incompatible orphan crop which is gaining interest as it can be grown worldwide and grows well in low fertility soil. However, there are limited genomic resources available for common buckwheat. Here Fawcett et al. combined Illumnia short-read data with…
Review: Transposable element life cycles in plant genomes and beyond
Plant Science Research WeeklyWhat a wonderful review! As the title indicates, this review by Liu et al. looks at transposons, considering their “life cycle” – from introduction into a naïve genome, through amplification, diversification, silencing, reactivation, and ultimately domestication or loss-of-function. Besides this…