URM Plant Scientist Highlights - José Dinenny (he/him)
BlogJosé Dinneny (he/him) was born in 1978 in Key West, Florida where his parents had taken up an adventurous life of sailing the Caribbean and living on a small sailboat, which had been named “Patches” owing to the many repairs the ship needed. José’s family faced significant hardships when his…
Development and cell cycle dynamics of the root apical meristem in the fern Ceratopteris richardii (bioRxiv)
Plant Science Research Weekly
Roots are essential organs for nutrient and water uptake and have been extensively investigated in angiosperms. Many studies suggest that roots originated through convergent evolution in vascular plants, a clade that includes seed plants and ferns. Besides Arabidopsis and crops, little is known about…
It takes two to be you: promoter motif pairs keep immune responses within cell identity boundaries
Blog, Research, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In BriefBeing a multicellular organism is not an easy task. Proper functioning of individual cell types with different functions requires coordination of gene expression to determine cell identity, but also regulatory mechanisms to respond to environmental cues. The root may appear simple at first sight, but…
Date Palm Germination: Mysteries Unlocked
Research, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In a NutshellXiao et al. investigate date palm germination. Plant Cell (2019) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00008
By Ting Ting Xiao and Ikram Blilou
Background: Desert plants have evolved different strategies to survive desert climate. Developmental mechanisms underlying these adaptive strategies…
A specialized metabolic network selectively modulates Arabidopsis root microbiota (Science)
Plant Science Research WeeklyPlants have evolved to adapt to varied environmental niches. The ability to produce specialized metabolites is one of the evolved characteristics which help plants to thrive through varied biotic and abiotic conditions. Plant-associated microbes are always known to have a drastic impact on plant growth…
Review - Getting to the Roots: A Developmental Genetic View of Root Anatomy and Function From Arabidopsis to Lycophytes (Frontiers in Plant Sci)
Blog, Plant Science Research WeeklyPlant roots are essential organs for water and nutrient uptake, and aboveground biomass support. While these organs are important for many plant functions, the evolutionary history of the root is still unclear. The fossil record suggests that roots evolved in both the lycophyte (clubmosses and their…