When thinking about plant reproduction you might be forgiven thinking that all the action happens in flowers. Small interference RNA, or siRNA for short, that originated elsewhere in the plant also play a role. In fact, without them pollen are largely not viable. The one exception, at least so scientists thought, where the brassica species. Now a new study shows that they siRNAs as well, only they produce them slightly different.
Category Archives: Paper highlight
Salt loving bacteria help plants in salty soils
Crops growing on salty soil do less well than their on none salty soil growing counterparts. And this is a problem, as salinity affects huge swatches of soil all over the world. Now a group of Indian researchers decided to find out if salt loving bacteria could help plants grow on salty soils.
Sensing temperature
Plants sense temperature, but whether this is the actual temperature, or a perceived difference in temperature, that’s what the scientists are not sure about. Now a group of Japanese scientists think they have the answer, at least for the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha.
Using the pathogens tricks to gain resistance
Plants and pathogens are involved in a tug of war. A lot of that fight takes place in the extracellular space, the space between cells, in plant tissues. There plants secrete an arsenal of defence molecules, like proteases, glycosidases and lipases. Pathogens do this as well including some inhibitors. So how come those inhibitors don’t inhibit the pathogen’s own arsenal?
Plant en Zo 