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Thylakoid membranes must maintain a balance of their electrical and pH potentials, created by light-driven photosynthesis. Photoprotective mechanisms and electron transport are fine-tuned through pH oscillations mediated by K+ and Cl– channels.
Analyses of individual shoot meristem transcriptomes in wild-type and mutant tomato, at high temporal resolution, produce remarkably precise information about gene expression patterns during the transition from vegetative to floral growth that translates into genetic hierarchies.
Analyses on a newly assembled, nearly complete genome of Ginkgo biloba revealed the cause of genome expansion and candidate genes associated with the formation of spermatophore flagellum in ginkgo, advancing our understanding about gymnosperm evolution.
Pavement cells in the epidermal layer of plant leaves are frequently used to study plant cell morphogenesis. Comprehensive mechanistic models are now developed to integrate the mechanisms underlying the process of symmetry breaking and lobe formation in pavement cells.
A massively parallel reporter assay was used to measure the activity of nearly complete sets of promoters from Arabidopsis, maize and sorghum in two assay systems, uncovering the sequence features affecting promoter strength and facilitating promoter strength prediction and synthetic design.
Correcting organizational errors of the Brassica A, B and C genomes reveals the conserved structure of each genome across species and genome evolutionary pathways. Genus-wide pan-genomes were constructed, helping to elucidate the genomic impacts of alien introgressions.
Salt-responsive gene regulatory networks in two distantly related species, Arabidopsis and Marchantia polymorpha, are characterized and compared. While WRKY transcription factors are central nodes in both networks, their target promoter sequences have been expanded in Arabidopsis.
An introgression platform for transferring genetic variations of Aegilops tauschii to hexaploid wheat is established based on synthetic octoploid wheat. Combined with newly generated genome resources of A. tauschii, it represents a powerful tool for wheat gene discovery and breeding.
Plants evolved powerful mechanisms to fight against pathogenic microorganisms. So how can they accept and even favour the presence of growth-promoting fungi or bacteria? Here, the authors show that helpful commensal bacteria can suppress part of the plant innate immune system.
A sorghum pan-genome generated from 16 genomes representing cultivated and wild sorghum shows extensive variation, with 64% of the gene families exhibiting presence/absence variations, some of which confer phenotypic outcomes and contribute to domestication and improvement.
Fruit ripening is a fine-tuned process involving wholesale changes to both the structure and metabolism of the fruit. Now, the CHLORAD proteolytic pathway is shown to regulate chromoplast development, thus altering the ripening process of tomato fruits.
In Arabidopsis, xylem pole pericycle cells produce lateral roots. Here, two subfamilies of bHLH transcription factors are characterized. They confer to these pericycle cells the ability to re-activate cell division and initiate lateral roots.
Brassinosteroids are important for organ growth but are not transported over long distances. The authors show that spatiotemporal coordination of multiple biosynthetic enzymes is necessary for local brassinosteroid synthesis in the root elongation zone.
Analyses of 866 crops showed historical processes affect crop relevance, as crops originating from seasonally dry environments have the greatest agricultural relevance and older crops tend to be globally important compared to crops of recent origin.
A genetic screen identifies the versatile membrane receptor protein FERONIA as a key modulator of rhizosphere Pseudomonas and microbiome composition in Arabidopsis, through the control of basal levels of reactive oxygen species production.
Miscanthus is widely used as a feedstock for cellulosic biofuel production. Genome sequencing shows that M. floridulus is most distantly related to other Miscanthus species and is more genetically diverse.
Iterating mutagenesis and exposure to increasing light dramatically enhanced the light tolerance of a Synechocystis cyanobacterium strain. This involved over 100 mutations grouped around five haplotypes, as well as putative epistatic interactions.
Stomatal development requires asymmetric cell division and cell-fate determination, in which BASL is an essential regulator. The binding partners of BASL are now identified and characterized to reveal the molecular mechanism of cell-fate asymmetry in stomata.
Etioplasts are photosynthetically inactive plastids that are converted to chloroplasts under light exposure. To study thylakoid membrane biogenesis, cryo-electron tomography is used to image membranes isolated from etioplasts and reconstruct the architecture of proteins associated with the membrane.
Photosystems need auxiliary proteins to assist their assembly. Cryo-electron microscopy of a cyanobacterial photosystem II assembly intermediate at 2.94 Å reveals mechanisms protecting against photodamage during vulnerable stages of biogenesis.