Tag: Metabolism

IN BRIEF by Nancy R. Hofmann [email protected] The economy of living cells includes energy production, energy utilization, and energy storage. Thus, a plant’s energy budget must connect the decision to produce lipids (for energy storage) with its overall energy status. Energy sensor kinases, such…

Moss are non-vascular plants and do not produce the phenolic polymer lignin, but they do have some enzymes associated with the lignin pathway, raising the question of the evolutionary origins of lignin. In angiosperms, the cytochrome P450 enzyme encoded by CYP98 catalyzes the first irreversible step…

Chen et al. identified a novel male-sterile Zea mays mutant, named ipe1.  Mutant pollen grains show defective development of the tapetum and pollen exine (outer surface), causing microspore abortion.  In addition, ipe1 anthers are smooth instead of reticulate, suggesting defects in anther cuticle formation. …

This Update focuses on the starch that accumulates in the guard cells that control stomatal pore size and thus the exchange of water vapor, CO2 and O2 between the leaf and the atmosphere. Transitory starch in these cells plays a key role in determining the velocity of stomatal opening in the light. This…

Biogeographic studies suggest that the degree of fatty acid unsaturation in oilseeds has played a major role in adapting plants to temperature. The enzymes that are primarily responsible for producing polyunsaturated fatty acids in seed oils are the microsomal ω-6 and ω-3 fatty acid desaturases FAD2…

Drought tolerance is a complex trait, and Avramova et al. show that there is more than one way to be drought tolerant. Specifically, they investigate the role of antioxidants in supporting leaf growth in several varieties of drought tolerant maize. As compared to the tolerant lines, drought sensitive…

Rubisco (Ribulose-1,5-biphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase) is the key enzyme in photosynthetic carbon fixation. In C3 plants, the enzyme is usually found in mesophyll cells and guard cells, but it also can be found in photosynthetic glandular trichomes such as those found in tobacco. Laterre et al. used…

Activity-based protein profiling is a proteomics approach that involves covalently labeling reporter tags to subsets of proteins based on their active sites. Morimoto and van der Hoorn define different types of probes and the types of proteins that they bind to. Activity profiling can reveal different…