Journal Club

Highlighting recent, timely papers selected by Academy member labs

Tag Archives: Arabidopsis

Prion-like protein acts as water sensor in seeds

Posted on July 26, 2021 by Jyoti Madhusoodanan

The sprouting of a seed is clearly a crucial stage in a plant’s life. Yet one part of the process has long been shrouded in mystery: How do seeds know when there’s enough water to germinate? Researchers recently reported the … Continue reading →

Transgenic switchgrass cleans up contamination from military explosives

Posted on May 14, 2021 by Carolyn Beans

At military sites in the United States and across the globe, routine live-fire trainings produce a downpour of an explosive known as RDX (hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine). A synthetic chemical, RDX can threaten human health, damaging the nervous system if inhaled or ingested. … Continue reading →

Plants sense temperature with help of elegant protein

Posted on September 18, 2020 by Amy McDermott

How plants sense temperature is a longstanding and little-understood question. Researchers have discovered some of the mechanisms involved. A recent study in Nature adds a new mechanism—among the first in which the biophysical behavior of a single protein regulates the … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Plant Biology | Tagged amino acids, Arabidopsis, ELF3, flowering, meristem, NTL8, protein, temperature, thermosensing | Leave a comment

Potentially key gene has big role in natural variation of chloroplast size

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Amy McDermott

Worldwide populations of Arabidopsis thaliana all have the same genes, but they vary in many traits, including the size of their chloroplasts. A recent study in Plant Physiology identified one of the genes, FtsZ2-2, contributing to the natural variation in … Continue reading →

Categories: Agriculture | Genetics | Journal Club | Tagged Arabidopsis, chloroplast, FtsZ | Leave a comment

Unlocking a mystery of seed development promises fatter, oilier oilseeds

Posted on August 30, 2019 by Amy McDermott

The canola cooking oil lining supermarket shelves comes from the seeds of Brassica napus, a weedy-looking plant in the mustard family. Farmers of this crop understandably want varieties that yield big, oily seeds. A recent study in The Plant Cell … Continue reading →

Categories: Agriculture | Genetics | Plant Biology | Tagged Arabidopsis, Brassica napus, canola, LEC2, oilseed rape, rapeseed, UPL3 | Leave a comment

Journal Club: Understanding how a plant makes a hook could someday improve crops

Posted on April 12, 2019 by Amber Dance

This spring, as the first shoots of new plants emerge from the soil, many are bent over in a hook. This simple act protects the fragile stem tip and leaves as the sprout pokes up through the dirt. But how … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Plants load extracellular vesicles with a new class of RNAs

Posted on February 19, 2019 by Jyoti Madhusoodanan

A recent study in The Plant Cell found that plants release extracellular vesicles carrying a new class of RNA molecules, named “tiny RNAs.” The findings are among the first to reveal the contents of these vesicles, and may hint at … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Insights from 3-D images defy assumptions about how plant cells communicate

Posted on June 23, 2017 by Carolyn Beans

When plant cells communicate, plasmodesmata serve as crucial conduits. These channels cross cell walls, linking one cell to its neighbor. If a plant needs to grow larger or fight off a pathogen, molecular signals pass through plasmodesmata to keep cells … Continue reading →

Categories: Cell Biology | Journal Club | Plant Biology | Tagged Arabidopsis, cell communication, electron microscopy, plant cell, plasmodesmata | Leave a comment