Early detection of a pathogen attack can prevent the spread of an infection. But how this early detection is then translated into warning for the rest of the plant is not known. Now British researchers show in Nature Plants using a reporter system that the alarm passes through the plant much faster than first thought.
Category Archives: Paper highlight
Creating an oxygen-restricted niche
Plants, just like us, need oxygen, but their growth centre, there where the leaves and stems emerge, is surprisingly low on oxygen. There, there is four to six times less than in the air outside the plant. Now a group of international researchers show in Molecular Plant how a plant establishes and maintains this low oxygen niche.
Seed banks shape gene drive outcomes
Seeds have this amazing ability to lay dormant in the soil for many years. As such, although genes are transferred from one generation to the next, that next generation isn’t always directly following the previous one. This makes studying the outcome of plant reproduction more complex. Now a new paper in Nature Plants shows how seed dormancy influences the success of gene drives.
Stomata done differently
Stomata are the pores formed by kidney shaped cells. But in some plants like succulents, they look a little bit different and have these accompanying “wingmen” cells. Now a new study in Science Advances found clues for their function and how they are formed.
Plant en Zo 