Tag: Transcriptomics

The ability to analyze the information contained within a single cell, for example through single-cell RNA sequening (scRNA-seq) presents exciting possibilities to biologists. Building on this and similar technologies, the Plant Cell Atlas (PCA) (www.plantcellatlas.org/) has the goal of creating an information…

Secondary dormancy (SD) of seeds is a natural strategy that allows survival of the plant in environments with unfavourable climatic conditions. However, in Arabidopsis, a variance of dormancy depth in between identical seeds can be explained by population-based threshold models. This single-seed variability…

Many plants trigger a form of cell death, known as the hypersensitive response (HR), immediately upon pathogen recognition. To minimize damage to the plant, this cell death must be highly localized to the site of attack, while more distal cells survive and activate other immune responses. However, the…

Genes are generally expressed in concert with one another with data often represented by gene co-expression networks. Gene co-expression data may be useful in identifying genes with unknown functions and are generally utilized in exploring molecular processes occurring during normal development as well…

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is a powerful tool to identify rare and novel cell types, characterize multiple cell types, and more accurately understand their functions across their life cycles. The Arabidopsis root is a perfect system in which to investigate cellular differentiation due to…

In this seminal paper, Roszak et al. present a deeper understanding of the development of the protophloem cell lineage. The differentiation process from the phloem stem cell to the enucleated cell state spans approximately 19 cells. Using live imaging, FACS sorting and single-cell RNA sequencing, the…

Many biological processes are controlled by the circadian clock in plants, yet studies often don't report sampling timepoints, leaving much to be discovered about the plant circadian rhythm. Apelt et al. have utilised single cell RNA sequencing to examine almost 70,000 Arabidopsis cells from above and…

Desert plants must produce seeds that can withstand incredibly high temperatures. Nevertheless, different species of cacti –one of the most emblematic plant groups of these ecosystems– exhibit variable responses to extreme temperatures. In this fascinating paper, Visscher and colleagues conduct a…