Volume 8 Issue 3, March 2022

New evidence that a mid-Cretaceous fossil represents a modern angiosperm genus partly reinstates Darwin’s view of the fossil record.

A recent study suggests that the optimal temperature for symbiotic nitrogen fixation rates exceeds the plant’s preferred growth temperature in laboratory conditions. A few degrees of warming could thereby increase or decrease nitrogen fixation rates, depending on the optimal rate among species.

Development of flowers typically employs conserved molecular pathways and recurrent sets of homologous genes. A new study shows that a homologue of RADIALIS, a gene well known to control flower symmetry, is recruited to serve a different function.

Growth defects associated with disruption of the mildew susceptibility gene MLO are rescued in bread wheat and Arabidopsis by transcriptional activation of a proximal monosaccharide transporter

In plants, impairing transgenerational resetting of juvenility leads to premature flowering in the offspring. This robust reset process is mediated by de novo activation of MIR156/7-family genes at different developmental stages through distinct reprogramming routes.

An examination of the potential use of fruit and wood from olive trees on the coast of Morocco approximately 100,000 years ago.

Terrestrial biosphere models use a temperature function for N fixation in trees that may not be accurate. This Letter presents evidence that higher temperatures, caused by global warming, may increase N fixation.

In hexaploid persimmon, the RADIALIS-like gene was identified as a key player in the reversion of male flowers to hermaphroditism. Interestingly, it acts independently of the pathways involved in the ancestral transitions away from hermaphroditism.

Thousands of plants are known to be edible, yet we lack nutritional data for many of them. This study predicts the B-vitamin profiles for edible plants and finds many have the potential to help alleviate deficiencies and should be conservation priorities.

Assemblies of six representative perennial Glycine genomes and a comparison with annual soybean genomes reveal evolutionary patterns, differentiation and adaptation of annual and perennial genomes and mechanisms driving subgenome fractionation.

A method for targeted mutagenesis of mitochondrial genomes is presented. It combines site-specific DNA cleavage with selection for mutations that confer cleavage resistance, and produces genetically stable plants with edited mitochondrial genomes.

In Arabidopsis, microRNAs control the transition from juvenile to adult states. The study, using genomic, genetic and molecular approaches, investigates how miR156 and miR157 are re-activated at each generation.

The establishment of leaf adaxial–abaxial polarity happens early at the shoot apical meristem. Using quantitative live imaging of auxin and dorsiventral polarity markers, the authors trace the origin of polarity to before primordium emergence, to an overlay of high auxin onto a meristem periphery prepattern.

In potato, the TCP transcription factor BRANCHED1b represses aerial tuber formation in the axils of the leaves. It functions through limiting the number of plasmodesmata, reducing sucrose levels and repressing the tuberigen protein SP6A.

A xylan-rich nanodomain at pit boundaries of xylem vessels maintains distinct wall patterns by anchoring cellulosic nanofibrils at the pit borders. These nanocompartments are produced by the xylan synthase IRREGULAR XYLEM (IRX)10 and its homologues.

The cryo-EM structure of the PSI–LHCI photosystem supercomplex from Physcomitrium patens shows that the red-shifted Lhca4 antenna is replaced by an Lhca2 paralogue. The structure demonstrates an adaptation of mosses to low light.