Recent Posts

Improving water use efficiency in maize

Blankenagel et al. discover a major link between variation in water use efficiency and carbon isotope discrimination  By Sonja Blankenagel, Stella Eggels, and Viktoriya Avramova Plant Breeding, TUM School of Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich  Background: Growing crops with high…

Unraveling Ammonium Transporter-Mediated Nitrogen Transfer in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Symbiosis

Jing Hui et al. identified ZmAMT3;1 as a mycorrhiza-specific ammonium transporter that transfers ammonium from fungi to plants across the plant–fungus interface and enhances nitrogen acquisition in maize. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koac225 By Jing Hui and Lixing Yuan, China Agricultural…

Unraveling cold tolerance in maize

Li et al. discover a cold-tolerance allele that was not selected during maize domestication.   Background: Cold stress is an important environmental factor that limits plant growth, development, and geographical distribution. Maize originated in Mexico and is sensitive to low temperatures. Cold stress…

18S rRNA processing factors in maize

Wang et al. find an RNA 3’-terminal phosphate cyclase-like protein that participates in processing the 18S ribosomal RNA in maize. https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koac052 by Tao Wang and Jun Yang The National Engineering Laboratory of Crop Resistance Breeding, School of Life Sciences, Anhui Agricultural…

Unraveling bHLH transcription factor-mediated maize anther development

Nan, Teng et al. uncover bHLH-regulated genetic networks that sequentially control maize anther development.  By Chong Teng (DDPSC, MO), Guo-Ling Nan (Stanford University, CA), Blake Meyers (DDPSC and University of Missouri–Columbia, MO), and Virginia Walbot (Stanford University, CA)  Background:…

How does ENB1 contribute to formation of a persistent endosperm in maize?

Wang et al. explore cellulose deposition in maize seeds. Qun Wang and Rentao Song China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China Background: Plant seeds are mainly classified into two types: one with a persistent endosperm as in cereals, and the other with a transient endosperm as in…

Prediction of gene responses to heat and cold stress in maize

Zhou and colleagues dissect the transcriptional response of maize seedlings to cold and heat stress and explore to what extent gene expression can be predicted from cis-regulatory motifs in promoters by employing machine learning approaches By Peng Zhou, University of Minnesota Background: Plants…

The Importance of the DNA Damage Response during Maize Kernel Development

Pedroza-Garcia report that the necessity for DNA damage response kinases under non-stress conditions is higher in maize than in Arabidopsis, indicating that the mechanisms maintaining genome integrity may be more important for vegetative and reproductive development than previously thought. Plant Cell…
Headshot of Thelma Madzima. In the background are a series of pipette tip boxes and a mini vortexer.

URM Plant Scientist Highlights - Thelma Madzima (she/her)

Dr. Thelma Madzima (she/her) is one of very few Black faculty in the USA who are plant molecular biologists. Originally from Zimbabwe, Thelma immigrated to the US at the age of 17 to attend college. She received her B.S. in Plant Science and Plant Biotechnology from Fort Valley State University, a historically…