Tag: Metabolism

Lu et al. show that diterpenoids contribute to disease resistance in rice. Plant Cell. (2018). https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00205 Background: Rice (Oryza sativa) is an important food crop. Diseases caused by the fungal blast pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae and bacterial leaf blight pathogen Xanthomonas…

Anthocyanins are common plant pigments that provide dietary benefits, causing an increase in their use as a food coloring agents. However, purifying anthocyanins from current plant sources (such as waste grape skins, red cabbage and berries) is expensive and creates a variable product. Modifying biosynthetic…

Commentary by Trevor H. Yeats and Raimund Nagel Saffron is produced from the stigmas and styles of Crocus sativus flowers and is one of the most expensive spices. In C. sativus, both stigma and style are intensely crimson red in color due to the presence of three major classes of apocarotenoids: crocins,…

Sulfur (S) is an essential element for cell function and responses to the environment. The primary S source is sulfate, which, following uptake by specific transporters, is reduced and incorporated into the amino acids Cysteine (Cys) and Methionine, and thereafter into proteins and peptides, including…

Despite major advances in understanding cold signaling, cold acclimation, and freezing protection in model and crop species, and extensive studies of natural variation in freezing tolerance in Arabidopsis accessions, the question of which genes and mechanisms underlie freezing tolerance of wild species…

In dark-grown plants, the plastids of cotyledon cells develop as etioplasts. Etioplasts contain unique internal lattice membrane structures called prolamellar bodies (PLBs) and lamellar prothylakoids (PTs). PLBs accumulate protochlorophyllide (Pchlide), a chlorophyll intermediate, in a complex with NADPH…

By Adam Phillips. Reprinted from It Ain't Magic, The RIKEN Global Communications Team https://itaintmagic.riken.jp/hot-off-the-press/plants-beat-heat It seems like I’ve been writing a lot about plants recently. The truth is that I hardly have enough time to write about all the cool plant…

Discovery of the biosynthetic pathway of a plant metabolite lays the groundwork for its use as an anti-diabetes drug Roughly half of the western medicines used today were derived from naturally occurring plant metabolites. Plants produce over 200,000 of these specialized metabolites, but identifying…