It’s not just human relationships that may require a chaperone to prevent inappropriate interactions. Numerous proteins in organisms from Escherichia coli to us, especially hydrophobic membrane proteins, also require chaperones in aqueous environments to prevent inappropriate interactions such as aggregation or improper folding (Gruber and Horovitz, 2016). Whereas most plasma... Read more

Metallic action! The dynamics of a tripartite iron uptake complex in Arabidopsis roots  By Marcelo Lattarulo Campos Integrative Plant Research Laboratory, Departamento de Botânica e Ecologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, Cuiabá/MT, Brazil. ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6235-5120 Twitter: @lattarulo marcelolattarulo@ufmt.br Plants generally obtain mineral nutrients from the soil... Read more

Tonosaki et al. explore how the Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 component EMBRYONIC FLOWER2a represses rice endosperm development both before and after fertilization. The Plant Cell (2020) https://bit.ly/33DQdqW By Kaoru Tonosaki and Tetsu Kinoshita Iwate University and Yokohama City University   Background: The endosperm is a tissue that provides nourishment for... Read more

In plants, small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) serve as key regulators of gene expression. While 24-nucleotide (nt) siRNAs are produced by DCL3 and mediate transcriptional silencing of transposons and pericentromeric chromatin through RdDM (Borges and Martienssen, 2015), 22-nt siRNAs are processed by DCL2 and participate in transgene silencing and viral defense... Read more

To grow or not to grow: specific lipoxygenases control wound-induced growth restriction Amna Mhamdi Ghent University, Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, and VIB Center for Plant Systems Biology, 9052 Ghent, Belgium Address correspondence to: amna.mhamdi@psb.ugent.be As most vegetable growers know, plants have a lot of predators. Repetitive wounding events... Read more

Klasek, Inoue, and Theg show how the chloroplast chaperonin Cpn60 binds Plastidic type I signal peptidase 1 in the chloroplast stroma and delivers it to the cpSecI translocon for targeting to the thylakoid membrane. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00309 By Laura Klasek, University of California, Davis Background: As a plant grows, its... Read more

Yanjun Chen, co-first author of Full-length annotation with multi-strategy RNA-seq uncovers transcriptional regulation of lncRNAs in cotton Current Position: Master, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University Education: Master in Developmental Biology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, China Non-scientific Interests: volleyball Brief bio: During my postgraduate study, I mainly explored the... Read more

Xiaomin Zheng, co-first author of Full-length annotation with multi-strategy RNA-seq uncovers transcriptional regulation of lncRNAs in cotton Current Position: Ph.D. candidate, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University Education: Ph.D. in Botany, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, China Non-scientific Interests: reading and watching movies Brief bio: After finishing my undergraduate education... Read more

By Conviron Scholar Sessen Daniel Increasing world population, climate change, natural resources degradation and loss of biodiversity are critical challenges that are undermining food security and raising serious concerns over the resilience of our agricultural system. Will current agriculture, relying on just four crops to provide two-thirds of the global... Read more

Xiu-Li Hou, first author of DEAD-BOX RNA HELICASE 27 Regulates MicroRNA Biogenesis, Zygote Division and Stem Cell Homeostasis Current Position: Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China Education: PhD in Developmental Biology, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing,... Read more

Jingjing Zhai, first author of deepEA: a containerized web server for interactive analysis of epitranscriptome sequencing data Current Position: PhD candidate in State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology for Arid Areas, Center of Bioinformatics, College of Life Sciences, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, China Education: B.S. from Northwest A&F University, Yangling,... Read more

Charlotte Gommers, first author of GENOMES UNCOUPLED1-independent retrograde signaling targets the ethylene pathway to repress photomorphogenesis Current Position: Assistant Professor in the department of Plant Physiology at Wageningen University & Research Education: BSc and MSc Biology at Radboud University in Nijmegen (2006 – 2012), PhD Plant Ecophysiology at Utrecht University... Read more

Wang et al. demonstrate that Arabidopsis SAUR17 promotes apical hook development and closed cotyledons in the dark by protecting the cell-expansion inhibitor PP2C-D1. The Plant Cell (2020) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00283   By Jiajun Wang, Ning Sun, Fangfang Zhang, Renbo Yu, Haodong Chen, Xing Wang Deng, and Ning Wei  Background: Many land plants... Read more

Töpfer et al. created a combined leaf metabolism/gas exchange model to predict water saving and productivity in temperate climates. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00132 By Nadine Töpfera and R. George Ratcliffeb …..a Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Gatersleben, Germany …..b Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, South... Read more

H. Li et al. identified and characterized a new genetic factor that controls grass-specific pollen wall pattern formation in rice. The Plant Cell (2020) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.20.00551 By HuanJun Li, Yu-Jin Kim and Wanqi Liang Background: Pollen, the male gametophyte in flowering plants, is enclosed within a thick and extremely resistant wall... Read more

The AFRI Coalition sends letter to Chairman Hoeven, Ranking Member Merkley, Chairman Bishop, and Ranking Member Fortenberry (members of the U.S. Senate and House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittees) regarding fiscal year 2021 spending proposals. The AFRI Coalition commends you for your support of USDA’s Agriculture & Food Research Initiative (AFRI) and... Read more

ASPB signs on to coalition letter in support of the NSF for fiscal year 2021 appropriations legislation. The letter was sent on November 20, 2020 to the U.S. Senate and House Committee on Appropriations members:  Chairman Shelby, Vice Chairman Leahy, Chairwoman Lowey, and Ranking Member Granger. As Congress seeks to... Read more

As part of its ongoing work to standardize and promote the sharing of data generated from biomedical research, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published its final NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing (DMS) on October 29, 2020.  The final policy is the culmination of several recent efforts from... Read more

On November 2, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will launch a new portal to list all future funding opportunities and submit applications for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.  Fiscal year (FY) 2021 application submissions will be through the new portal, while open opportunities published prior to November 2... Read more

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently released a solicitation for the new Mid-Career Advancement (MCA) program.  NSF recognizes that while the mid-career timeframe is essential for advancing research, many faculty have to balance research with other demands, such as teaching and service activities.  Through this solicitation, NSF intends to support... Read more