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A chromatin-based, RNA interference (RNAi)-independent mechanism re-establishes DNA methylation on heterochromatic transposable elements that lost silent marks in previous generations. Multiple factors including CG methylation and H2A.W replacement influence the efficiency of this methylation reprogramming mechanism.
The landscape of forest and human activity is ever shifting, but new large-scale trends are causing exceptional changes and potential space for new conservation and development for communities dependent on forests.
This perspective highlights the new species-independent analytical tools with a focus on plant nanosensors and portable Raman spectroscopy, and evaluates their applications in agriculture, such as detecting plant stresses and monitoring crop physiology.
Genebanks are repositories of genetic diversity, and getting the seeds to the facilities depends on committed researchers going, if necessary, into war-torn areas in order to save and transport their resources. This narrative recounts one such journey and the system that underpins these facilities and individuals.
The peel of fruits represents a major defensive barrier. A new study analysing comprehensive transcript and metabolite data from tomato skin provides mapping of the genomic regions allowing for the coordinated regulation of metabolism, development and fungal defence at an exquisite resolution.
1-Aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) has emerged as a signalling molecule in its own right, regulating distinct plant processes independently from its conversion to ethylene. Now it seems that ACC signalling has been steering plant development for hundreds of millions of years, predating the diversification of seed plants.
Mothers and fathers contribute equally to the early embryonic transcriptome in plants, but the full extent of parental control of embryogenesis is unknown. Now it has been reported that expression of parental alleles can vary across cell types.
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 2 encompasses targets ranging from the eradication of hunger and malnutrition to ensuring a sustainable food production system. Conflicts between these goals gives rise to gaps in our understanding that hamper attempts at evidence-based policy-making.
Polar cell growth requires spatiotemporal regulation of Rho of plants (ROPs) small G proteins in membrane domains. In addition to localized activation of membrane-anchored ROPs, a mechanism for their local inactivation has now been identified.
Rubisco is a complex, ubiquitous protein composed of eight large and eight small subunits. By assembling Rubisco in bacterial cells, the specific characteristics of individual small subunits have been investigated with a view to engineering more efficient carbon fixation.
Plant roots have to orchestrate their growth pattern to access available nutrients. Root architecture is governed by auxin that locally steers growth and development of lateral roots, thereby increasing the uptake capacity. A new mechanism for ammonium acquisition by influencing cellular auxin import has been defined.
Quinones are small secondary metabolites synthesized by a broad range of organisms. Perception of these aromatic molecules in plants involves membrane-bound LRR-RLKs to induce downstream cellular responses in plants such as calcium fluxes, specific gene expression and MAPK activation.
A new model system for C4 plants has been established based on an indoor-cultivated rapid-cycling foxtail millet mutant xiaomi. This mutant, together with its reference genome and an efficient transformation protocol, paves the way for understanding the unique and interesting biology of C4 photosynthesis.
The excess application of nitrogen fertilizer in agriculture and the limitation of nitrogen uptake by crops raise the alarm about the urgency to breed crops with higher nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). Recently, a novel strategy has been developed to enhance NUE and crop production by manipulating nitrate remobilization.
Salicylic acid (SA) is an essential hormone for plant immune responses. In Arabidopsis, SA is perceived by two groups of receptors, NPR1 and NPR3/4, which play opposite roles in regulating defence gene expression. How SA binds to its receptors is now revealed by crystal structure analysis.
This Perspective discusses the genetic approaches to study auxin signalling and the limitations due to redundancy of the major components of this pathway, namely ARFs and Aux/IAAs. The authors make a case for a renewal of genetic analyses using multiple mutants.
Alternative splicing provides a fundamental and ubiquitous mechanism of gene regulation. Stimuli-induced retention of introns introduces novel proteoforms with altered signalling output: full-length CPK28 blocks immune signalling, while a truncated variant, lacking calcium responsiveness, promotes it.
This Review summarizes the growth of plant pan-genome studies, explore the origins of gene presence and absence variation, and introduces the impacts of pan-genomes on plant biology, breeding and evolutionary studies.
