Plants have fascinating genomes, complex with many multiplicated genes. It is one of the reasons they can produce many complex compounds. So, when I heard that they have those so-called extracellular circular DNA I was hooked.
Category Archives: Science
Plant organ growth inside story
The view was that the shape of plant tissues, including those of grains and fruits, is controlled by the pressure that the outermost tissue layers give to the inner tissues. A kind of mechanical feedback. But now a new study shows that the inner tissues also have a say in this.
Sensing the point of no return
When is it time to die, that is the question that lays behind the latest study of a group of Swedish researchers. They found that sensing depleted levels of the amino acid arginine tell the cell to throw in the towel.
Strengthening the walls
Plants, like all organisms don’t like an excess of salt. One of its ways to deal with salt stress is to strengthen their cell walls. FER, a receptor in the cell membrane is one of the key proteins in regulating this. Now a group of Chinese researchers show that key to this is the small molecule phosphatidic acid.
Plant en Zo 