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Trichomes are specific epidermal cells often functional in protection, seed dispersal and, less frequently, development. A MIXTA-like MYB transcription factor from cotton, GhMYBML10, has been shown to control petal trichome formation. Interestingly, the petal trichomes act as natural Velcro in maintaining correct flower bud shape, ensuring seed production.
Lignin is a principal component of plant cell walls and was thought to be mostly produced from L-phenylalanine. A new study in Brachypodium demonstrates that in grasses — a major source of food, livestock feed and biofuels — nearly half of the plant's lignin is actually made through fewer steps via l-tyrosine.
Florigen plant hormone is made in the leaf and then travels to the shoot apical meristem to trigger flowering. The phloem-mobile metal-binding protein NaKR1 physically interacts with florigen and mediates its long-distance transport through the sieve element.
Bread wheat, so-called because of its springy gluten protein that allows dough to rise, accounts for around 90% of global wheat production today. This presents a striking contrast to ancient cuisines based on subsistence farming, which incorporated a diverse range of foods including staple grains.
The rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis has a chequered and little-understood social history underlying its status as one of the world's most useful plants. Anthropological insight into its history can help to tackle the challenges rubber production will face in the future.
Micronutrient deficiency in human diets that are over-reliant on cereals can have grave consequences for health. Combining genetics, grafting and multi-elemental image analysis, new research shows that two P1B-ATPases maternally export zinc inside the developing seed in Arabidopsis, offering a new strategy for crop biofortification.
A series of genetic experiments demonstrates that small RNAs can direct gene silencing within germ cells in a non-cell-autonomous manner. This provides evidence for how plant germ and non-germ cells may communicate to maintain genome integrity during reproductive transitions.
A comprehensive analysis of transcripts in grafted cucumber–watermelon plants substantiates specific transcript transport to diverse tissues and provides new insights into phosphate starvation responses.
Cultivated peanut has a large, complex genome, so obtaining its entire sequence is challenging. De novo assemblies of two diploid ancestor genomes provide high-quality reference sequences for decoding allotetraploid peanut genomes, and will become valuable resources for breeding and evolutionary studies.
Plants must adapt to unfavourable environmental conditions. Shade avoidance by organ elongation is an important mechanism to move towards sunlight. A new mutant affected in auxin conjugation shows that auxin homeostasis controls hypocotyl elongation.
Different types of transcribed RNAs are processed by distinct RNases. Arabidopsis thaliana RNASE THREE LIKE2 (RTL2) is likely to play two opposing roles by both positively and negatively modulating the accumulation of 24-nucleotide siRNAs.
Unable to run away, plants adapt to environmental changes by adjusting their development. Two recent publications explore the unexpected contribution of blue light photoreceptors in the growth response to shade and warm temperatures.
Brassinosteroids and gibberellins are two principal growth-promoting hormones in plants. A transcription factor called JUB1 connects their signalling and biosynthesis through positive and negative feedback loops to finely coordinate developmental output.
Transcriptional gene silencing is a pivotal mechanism for regulating gene expression and genome stability. In Arabidopsis, combined analyses of small RNAs (sRNAs) and DNA methylation reveals that mobile 24-nt sRNAs are involved in reinforcing genome-wide silencing of transposons through DNA methylation.
Flavodiiron proteins help to protect cyanobacteria from excess light through the dissipation of excess electrons. Introducing moss flavodiiron proteins into Arabidopsis raises its resilience to fluctuating light, illustrating the potential for augmenting higher plants with photosynthetic components from lower plants, algae and cyanobacteria.
Buried seedlings must grow both strongly, to push through soil to the surface, and fast, to reach the light as quickly as possible. A recent study finds that a pair of sequentially acting E3 ubiquitin ligases balances these conflicting imperatives.
A broad-scale analysis of genic DNA methylation across the phylogeny of land plants reveals unexpected variation and provides insights into the evolutionary forces shaping it.