Volume 1 Issue 7, July 2015

The newly launched Diversity Seek initiative emphasizes the importance of state-of-the-art phenotypic and genotypic information. But to achieve its aims, it will also need to encourage the management of historical data, such as the metadata on the germplasm collections themselves.

Hypoxia has long been studied in relation to anaerobic metabolism. It has now been shown to control development, acting as a cue to maintain the seedling's protective apical hook and a trigger of developmental decisions both before and after the plantlet emerges from the soil into the light.

Over-application of nitrogen fertilizer leads to environmental problems in modern agricultural systems. The mining of favourable gene variants for nitrogen-use efficiency is a fundamental way to tackle these dangers.

Auxin binds to its receptor within a ubiquitin ligase complex and promotes the binding and degradation of transcriptional repressors. The discovery of a cyclophilin isomerase enzyme critical in this process adds a new twist to auxin signalling.

Grasslands account for as much as one-third of the net primary production on land. Results from a network of experiments carried out on five continents suggest that two or more nutrients often constrain the productivity of these globally significant ecosystems.

Plant researchers have speculated about the need for mechanisms to lock-down cell fate in late development. In PRC2 mutants, specialized, endoreplicated root hair cells differentiate normally but later revert to an embryo-like state.

Plants lack the retrograde motor dynein. Although kinesin-14 from Physcomitrella patens is a minus-end-directed motor, it is not individually processive. But four or more molecules acting together can transport liposomes and may substitute for dynein in plants.

Plant somatic cells are totipotent, but once differentiated, must keep their own identity and function. Chromatin regulator PRC2 represses downstream transcription factors and prevents dedifferentiation and division of fully mature root hair cells.

Terrestrial ecosystem productivity is widely accepted to be nutrient limited. A series of standardized nutrient addition experiments, carried out on grasslands on five continents, suggests aboveground grassland productivity is commonly limited by multiple nutrients, including potassium and micronutrients.

Phytochromes are bistable molecular switches that control plant light responses. Phytochromes A and B have similar absorption properties but different effects. Modelling of phytochrome B function shows that dimerization underlies its specific activity.

The contribution of epigenetic factors to inbreeding depression and heterosis remains elusive. Now epigenetic Arabidopsis hybrids show that epigenetic diversity and regulation contribute to both.

The V-ATPase impaired in the det3 mutant acidifies trans-Golgi network/early endosome, and is needed for exocytosis of cargo vesicles, which are involved in recycling important membrane proteins such as the brassinoid receptor and cellulose synthase.