
Persistent drought monitoring using a microfluidic-printed electro-mechanical sensor of stomata in planta
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogPersistent drought monitoring using a microfluidic-printed electro-mechanical sensor of stomata in planta
The study of stomatal dynamics is crucial for understanding photosynthetic gas exchange and plant hydraulics, but there are currently no methods for measuring the conductance of individual stomata…

Arabidopsis perfusion platform RootChip reveals local adaptations of roots
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogRoots are essential plant organs that need to respond and adapt to dynamic environments. It is still unknown if these adaptations are based on systemic or cell-based responses. Stanley and colleagues created the dual-flow-RootChip, a platform for the heterogeneous perfusion of Arabidopsis roots to…

Roots-eye view: Using microdialysis and microCT to non-destructively map root nutrient depletion and accumulation zones
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogPlant roots constantly engage in nutrient and water uptake for crop productivity. Increasing the nutrient uptake efficiency of roots will promote sustainable agriculture by decreasing the need for fertilizer applications. To achieve this task, we need to understand the physiology of intact roots in their…

Measures of interoperability of phenotypic data: minimum information requirements and formatting
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research Blog
If you ever tried to compare the results from two different experiments, you probably realized that small variations in the environment have big impact on how the plants grow. There is a lot to be learned from how the variation in the environment affects plant phenotypes, but currently the description…

Light sheet microscopy imaging of light absorption and photosynthesis distribution in plant tissue
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogChlorophyll fluorescence is a common tool to investigate the behavior of the photosynthetic appratus, therefore photosynthetic capacity, at any physiological state. However, the different optical density of the samples can lead to light-dependent over- or underestimation of effective PSII quantum yields.…

Chlamydomonas photoreceptor gene editing by zinc-finger nucleases and CRISPR/Cas9
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogNew genome editing technology, such as zinc-finger nucleases and CRISPR/Cas9, are revolutionizing reverse genetics studies because they allow fast and precise genetic modifications in many species. However, they require efficient transformation and selection methods. This is notably a problem for algae…

Tomato Genome Goes Nano
Research, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In a NutshellSchmidt et al. demonstrate that nanopore technology can be applied to plant genomes https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00521
By Schmidt, M. H.-W., Vogel, A., Denton, A. K., Bolger, A. M., Bolger, M. E., and Usadel, B.
Background: An organism’s genome contains all the necessary information for its…

Review: DNA sequencing at 40: past, present and future ($)
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogShendure et al. provide a superb review of how DNA sequencing technology has changed over the years and how these changes open up new applications. They start with the Maxam and Gilbert chemical cleavage and the Sanger “chain-termination” methods developed in the 1970s, and describe the scale-ups…

De novo assembly of a new Solanum pennellii accession using nanopore sequencing
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogChromosomes are long, and DNA sequencing reads have typically been short, meaning that it is necessary to assemble lots and lots of short reads by looking for overlapping sequences. This strategy is made more difficult in repeat-rich and transposon-rich regions of genomes, which characterize many plant…