Recent Posts

A Possible Strategy for Increasing Methionine Titer in Seeds

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Methionine is a nutritionally essential sulfur-containing amino acid found at low levels in plants and in their seeds. It often limits the nutritional value of crop plants as a source of dietary protein for humans and animals.  In plants, methionine plays key roles in protein synthesis and mRNA translation,…

Exploring the chemical diversity and distribution of marine cyanobacteria and algae through mass spectrometry

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Like plants, algae and cyanobacteria produce a dizzying array of largely unexplored natural products that can be used as medicines, in biotechnology and in agriculture. Luzzatto-Knaan et al. used mass spectrometry (MS) to explore chemical diversity from marine samples collected across space and time.…

Bacterial biosensors for in vivo spatiotemporal mapping of root secretion

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Biosensors are powerful tools that provide readouts for various small molecules so that they can be detected and located. Pini et al. have developed a set of biosensors for expression in bacteria (Rhizobium leguminosarum) that reveal  some of the small molecules (including key sugars, polyols, organic…

Review: Systems-wide understanding of photosynthetic acclimation in algae and higher plants ($)

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Deriving energy from light is a bit like keeping your hands warm by juggling burning coals; doable but dangerous. Photosynthetic organisms constantly adjust their photosynthetic machinery to optimize energy production but avoid damage from excess light. Moejes et al.  describe a large-scale project,…

Vitamin B6 Is Essential for Maize Embryogenesis

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Vitamin B6 is synthesized de novo in plants, fungi, archeae, and most eubacteria, but not in animals, including humans, which have to obtain it from dietary sources. Vitamin B6 is an essential cofactor for a range of biochemical reactions and a potent antioxidant. In plants, it plays important roles…

Folate, DNA Methylation and Flowering Time

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Tetrahydrofolate (THF) and its derivatives, collectively termed folates, are a group of essential B-complex vitamins that have long been recognized as necessary nutrients to support normal cell differentiation and growth. Folates function as co-enzymes in one-carbon transfer reactions and play a central…

Exploiting maize genetic diversity: Metabolomic, enzyme activity profiling, and metabolic modelling to link leaf physiology to kernel yield ($)

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The path from genome to phenome is difficult to predict. Cañas et al. tried to identify biochemical markers that are correlated with kernel yield that could be selected for in breeding. Specifically, they collected data from metabolomics, enzyme activity assays and metabolic modeling, taken during the…

Chasing Scattered Genes: Identifying Specialized Metabolite Pathway Genes through Global Co-expression Analysis

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Plants produce scores of specialized metabolites (SMs) to attract or repel the organisms around them and to cope with life in a variable environment. For thousands of years, we have been exploiting these compounds to feed, heal, and adorn us. Many more SMs remain to be discovered: the chemical constituents…

Diversity of CO2 concentrating mechanisms and responses to CO2 concentration in marine and freshwater diatoms ($)

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The CO2-fixing enzyme ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase (Rubisco) works most efficiently at high concentrations of CO2. Many organisms have evolved CO2-concentrating mechanisms (CCMs), such as the PEP-carboxylation that occurs upstream of Rubisco in C4 plants. Diatoms and other eukaryotic algae use a…