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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.
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.
While the pandemic creates a ‘new normal’, many political, environmental and economic dynamics that were concerning us before 2020 have become all the more serious under the cover of COVID-19’s long shadow.
Genebanks are repositories of genetic diversity, and getting the seeds to the facilities depends on committed researchers going, if necessary, into war-torn areas in order to save and transport their resources. This narrative recounts one such journey and the system that underpins these facilities and individuals.
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 secreted protein effector from the fungal pathogen Verticillium dahliae has bactericidal properties. It allows the pathogen to modify the root microbiome in tomato and cotton, specifically eliminating plant-protective bacteria, to increase its own virulence.
1-Aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) has emerged as a signalling molecule in its own right, regulating distinct plant processes independently from its conversion to ethylene. Now it seems that ACC signalling has been steering plant development for hundreds of millions of years, predating the diversification of seed plants.
Mothers and fathers contribute equally to the early embryonic transcriptome in plants, but the full extent of parental control of embryogenesis is unknown. Now it has been reported that expression of parental alleles can vary across cell types.
The zygote’s genome is a combination of both the maternal and paternal genomes. Researchers previously found that the maternal and paternal genomes contribute equally to the transcriptome of early plant embryos. However, now Zhao et al. show a strong single parental effect on the development of the basal cell lineage of early proembryos in Arabidopsis.
Marchantia polymorpha lacks the enzyme that converts ACC into ethylene in higher plants. Genetic characterization of ethylene mutants and treatments with exogenous molecules suggest that, in this species, ACC and ethylene have independent functions.
In maize, a comprehensive set of approaches enabled the authors to analyse the biosynthetic pathway of the zealexin group of terpenoids and characterize the role of these antibiotic compounds in disease resistance.
The authors characterize a cross-talk between ABA and energy pathways. Essential ABA signalling components SnRK2s sequester SnRK1 in a protein complex, decreasing its interaction with the TOR kinase central for energy signalling.
Genomic analyses of 101 plant species reveals a fundamental shift in the proportion of repetitive sequences in genomes above around 10 Gbp—species with the largest genomes are only about 55% repetitive, and this proportion does not increase further with genome size.
Ending hunger is a major objective of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. A cross-journal collection of articles takes a systematic look at what we might already know about achieving it.