Volume 3 Issue 10, October 2017

The European infrastructures EMPHASIS and AnaEE aim to collaborate in bringing innovative solutions for a sustainable intensification of agriculture. By integrating the study of plant phenomics and agricultural ecology they hope to foster the development of novel scientific concepts, sensors and integrated models.

Temperature increases are associated with decreases in rainfall and ensuing crop yields. A recent study estimates that such warming over the last 30 years is responsible for 59,300 extra suicides in India, and proposes a new perspective to contextualize the linked effects of global warming in affected agricultural communities.

Gibberellins (GAs) control key growth and developmental processes in plants. Real-time monitoring of GA concentrations in living tissues is critical for understanding the actions of this hormone class. A first-generation optogenetic GA-nano-indicator now illuminates the effects of GA levels on cell length and light signalling.

A mechanism by which plants detect and respond to oxygen starvation has been known for some years. Three recent papers suggest that we haven’t been seeing the full picture.

A global analysis of translation efficiency and RNA accumulation revealed that microRNAs in the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas regulate target gene expression via RNA destabilization and translational repression like land plants and metazoans, yet in a different way.

Plastids are integrated into the cellular metabolism by several metabolite and ion transporters. The first crystal structure of one of these transporters, a member of the plastid phosphate transporter family, unravels a rocker-switch transport mode and serves as lead structure for other plastidial and endomembrane system transporters.

Programmed cell death is essential but differently regulated in animals and plants. In this Perspective, the features of plant apoptotic-like cell death are reassessed to highlight the similarities between animal and plant programmed cell death.

Recent outbreaks of wheat stem rust pose a threat to global wheat production. A powerful computational modelling approach is now used to trace and predict the spread of these new pathogen stains, and can potentially be applied to other wind-dispersed spores.

MicroRNAs regulate gene expression as part of the RNA-induced silencing complex. An analysis of miRNA in Chlamydomonas reinhardtiishows that algal miRNAs target sites predominantly within coding regions to destabilize mRNA and repress translation.

A study of botanical gardens around the world and the diversity of the species contained therein, with conclusions addressed to how to improve representation of plant species outside of their native sites.

Gibberellin (GA) is a plant hormone that plays an irreplaceable role in regulating growth and development. Now, the first fluorescent GA biosensor has been developed to visualize GA distributions at cellular resolution in Arabidopsis.

It remains unknown how the central metabolite acetyl-CoA affects histone acetylation in plants. Chen et al. now show that cytosolic acetyl-CoA promotes histone acetylation predominantly at H3K27 in Arabidopsis.

The first crystal structures of TPT, a membrane transporter that exports the Calvin cycle intermediates from chloroplasts and plays fundamental roles in nearly all photosynthetic eukaryotes, have now been resolved in complex with different substrates.