Recent Posts

Spiral down: Rice plants adopt helical root growth under ammonium stress (Plant J.)

While ammonium ions (NH4+) serve as important sources of nitrogen nutrition, higher concentrations are toxic and inhibit plant growth and development. In an attempt to understand how roots of rice plant adapt to high concentrations of NH4+, Jia and colleagues found the roots coil and adopt a helical…

CLAVATA signaling ensures reproductive development in plants across thermal environments (Curr. Biol.)

Plant reproduction and development requires robust signaling pathways that integrate environmental queues such as temperature. In Arabidopsis, the formation of flower primordia from the inflorescence meristem (IM) depends on the proliferation/ differentiation balance and is regulated by auxin and the…

MSH1-induced heritable enhanced growth vigor through grafting is associated with the RdDM pathway in plants (Nature Comms.)

The ability of plants to adapt to diverse environments and environmental conditions has been attributed to phenotypic plasticity mediated by genetic and epigenetic changes. Through grafting experiments, small RNA has been shown to be a mobile molecule that can be transmitted long-distance via the vascular…

How to go quiet: CHT7 regulates cell cycle exit in Chlamydomonas (Plant Cell)

Many microbes enter a state of low metabolic activity, called quiescence, when the conditions for growth and division become unfavorable. The transition from active proliferation to quiescence involves a comprehensive restructuring of cellular metabolism, accumulation of storage compounds, and an orderly…

Go polar: Regulation of Rho GTPases by ARO proteins (Nature Plants)

Polar cell growth is a key feature in plant organs like root hairs, trichomes and pollen tubes. Kulich and co-workers have identified novel regulatory elements governing the polar growth of root hairs and trichomes in Arabidopsis thaliana. Studying a group of proteins named ARMADILLO REPEAT ONLY (ARO),…

The love potion made by soil-borne fungi (Plant Cell Environ.)

The basic requirements for plant growth are water, nutrients, and light. There are many other factors contributing to plant growth, including the interactions between plants and soil microorganisms. Soil microorganisms produce a large array of volatiles that can affect root architecture (e.g., some volatiles…

Vascular transcription factors guide plant epidermal responses to limiting phosphate conditions (Science)

Plants produce more root hairs (epidermal projections) in response to low soil phosphate and the detailed mechanism of this developmental response remains elusive. TARGET OF MONOPTEROS 5 (TMO5) and LONESOME HIGHWAY (LHW) are vascular specific bHLH proteins that work as a heterodimer to activate the rate…