Volume 6 Issue 12, December 2020

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.

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.

A direct link between DNA repair and heat tolerance has been revealed in Arabidopsis thaliana.

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.

A comprehensive overview of how oil palm expansion and production has impacted forests on an international scale.

A targeted 75.5-Mb pericentric inversion was generated on the maize chromosome 2 by CRISPR–Cas9 technology in an elite inbred line.

The authors obtain a cryogenic electron microscopy structure of the cryptochrome blue-light receptor CRY2 in a light-induced tetramer complex. The key residues involved in oligomerization are characterized and validated by mutational analysis.

A study reveals that HOS1 activates the components of DNA repair systems to enhance the repair of heat-induced DNA damages and thermotolerance, establishing a direct link between DNA repair and thermotolerance.

A rice diterpenoid gene cluster is reported that controls the biosynthesis of 5,10-diketo-casbene, a phytoalexin that confers resistance to rice bacterial blight and blast fungus. It recently evolved in the japonica subspecies under artificial selection.

A chromatin-based, RNAi-independent mechanism is uncovered that reestablishes DNA methylation on heterochromatin transposable elements and is impacted by multiple factors, including CG methylation, H3K9 demethylation and replacement of H2A variants.

In most C₄ lineages, photosynthesis is compartmented between mesophyll and bundle sheath cells. Using the C₃ model Arabidopsis, this study identifies cis-elements and transcription factors driving gene expression restricted to bundle sheath strands.

The structural basis of the interactions between Rubisco and its intrinsically disordered linker protein provides insight into phase separation within the algal pyrenoid, an organelle responsible for around a third of global CO₂ fixation.

The insertion of magnesium into protoporphyrin starts the biosynthesis of chlorophyll. X-ray crystallography, computational modelling, mutagenesis and enzymology combined probe the magnesium chelatase complex’s structure and catalytic function.