Tag: Research Methods and Tools

N2-fixing rhizobia bacteria are able to establish symbiotic interactions with legumes in specialized organs called root nodules. Identifying elite rhizobia that are both competitive for nodule occupancy and effective in N2 fixation in agricultural environments is crucial for maximizing the yield of legumes.…

Thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) has been the absolute star of plant science research for more than 40 years, being the ideal model organism for its ease of handling and transferable knowledge to crops. In this review, Cesarino and coworkers explain how advances in "omics" technologies, together with…

The thylakoid membranes inside the chloroplasts house the major protein complexes required for photosynthesis, including photosystems I and II (PSI/II), the b6f complex and ATP synthase. To optimize photosynthetic efficiency, the distribution and abundance of these complexes are dynamically regulated…

Most of the current methods for assessing seed viability are time-consuming and destructive. As an alternative, some authors have suggested using procedures based on delayed luminescence; an ultra-weak light emitted by biological materials exposed to illumination. Here, Adeboye and Börner review the…

This is an interesting paper and certainly one to share with students. Nosek and Errington argue that how we usually think of as “replication”, repeating a study and observing the same results, is incorrect. Instead, they argue for abroader definition of replication, as something that supports the…

Firefly luciferase constructs are extensively used for gene expression studies but require a reaction with an exogenous substrate, so expression to some extent reflects tissue penetrance. Khakhar et al. designed customizable auto-luminescence constructs based on a fungal bioluminescence pathway (FBP)…

The ability to reliably induce a transgene has greatly enhanced the study of plant biology. Various chemical inducible system have worked robustly in plants, but plant synthetic biology is still lacking an efficient orthogonal (from outside) inducible system where multiple genes can be controlled at…

Maize has provided some fascinating mutants and developmental insights, but its genomic complexity has made it more difficult (for example as compared to rice) to identify agronomically important genes. Liu et al. describe a new high-throughput method to integrate forward- and reverse-genetics to identify…