Volume 1 Issue 12, December 2015

Soil microorganisms have long been known to aid plants through nitrogen fixation and water and nutrient exchange. Now researchers are unearthing new ways in which this subterranean biome affects plant performance.

Agriculture is often viewed as a source of problems needing innovative solutions. But agriculture can actually be a source of innovations for the bioeconomy, if researchers embrace the cultural changes needed.

The genome of a tiny resurrection plant has been sequenced using PacBio's long-read single-molecule real-time sequencing technology, aiding the understanding of extreme desiccation tolerance. The genome contiguity is comparable to that of genomes sequenced using far more laborious approaches.

The fields of ecology and evolutionary biology are implicitly connected. A new theory that links the global distribution and evolution of nitrogen-fixing trees uses the universal language of mathematics to make this connection more explicit.

Causal signals for seed initiation have been sought ever since double fertilization was discovered in 1898. New research reveals that auxin is an early driver of endosperm proliferation in Arabidopsis central cells, with or without fertilization.

The impacts of the prokaryotic ancestry of chloroplasts extend to the occurrence of a bacterial ‘alarm’ hormone, or alarmone, in plants, which is triggered by nutrient deficiency or stress. A new study shows that chloroplast development itself is reduced by alarmone, with seemingly paradoxical consequences for plant growth.

Ethylene is a gaseous plant hormone. The finding that unveils regulation of ethylene signalling at the translational level adds complexity to the ethylene signalling ‘regulatome’ and generates insightful questions that may advance our understanding of the pathway.

The ppGpp-dependent control of cell activities, namely the stringent response, has been elusive in eukaryotes. Arabidopsis mutant analysis now shows that plant stringent response controls organelle function and contributes to systematic growth.

When damaged by excess light the core proteins of photosystem II are repaired by selective degradation by the protease FtsH. Increased degradation after removal of outer subunits, suggests that protease accessibility identifies proteins as damaged.

Manganese is an essential metal for plant growth. A series of laboratory experiments suggest that metal tolerance protein 9 (MTP9), a member of the cation diffusion facilitator family, is required for manganese translocation, and thereby uptake, in rice.

Auxin-binding protein ABP1 has been characterized as a secreted receptor for the hormone. Embryonic lethality of insertion mutant abp1-1 hinted at a central role in development. However, this lethality is in fact due to deletion of neighbour gene BSM.

To ensure efficient photosynthesis the flow of electrons through the two photosystems in the chloroplast must be carefully balanced. This paper shows that LHCI mediates interactions between LHCII peripheral to the core and the PSI supercomplex.

Dinitrogen fixation by plants is a major source of new nitrogen to land ecosystems. Climatic constraints on the nitrogen cycle can explain biome-scale differences in the abundance of nitrogen fixing trees, according to an analysis of the ecological and evolutionary conditions under which different fixation strategies emerge.

Double fertilization in flowering plants produces both the embryo and the endosperm that is going to nourish it, forming a seed. Development of the endosperm is triggered by auxin production, derepressed by an epigenetic pathway after fertilization.

In the Brassica self-incompatibility (SI) response, the downstream signalling network of ARC1 E3 ubiquitin ligase remains elusive. Now, glyoxalase I is shown to be an ARC1-targted compatibility factor whose degradation leads to the SI response.

Wheat stem rust is a devastating fungal disease, especially since the emergence of the virulent Ug99 lineage. An efficient resistance gene, encoding a CC–NB–LRR, is identified in a highly diverse locus of rye, and is effective against Ug99.