Blocking the biosynthesis of canonical strigolactones by TIS108, a specific enzyme inhibitor, significantly lowered Striga infestation without affecting rice growth.
Continue reading Plant hormones to help prevent Striga invasion
A new gene-to-phenotype network for shoot branching.
Continue reading The benefits of a network view of selection response for complex traits
Plant defence against Botrytis cinerea, a ubiquitous pathogenic fungus, is known to depend upon the mobilisation of sugars which provide energy and carbon skeletons for the production of antifungal compounds. Lecompte et al. hypothesise that glucose and fructose could play distinct roles in plant defence, showing that disease severity is highly correlated to the relative fructose content in tomato stem tissues, defined as the proportion of fructose in the plant soluble sugar pool. Conditions of higher susceptibility are associated with glucose accumulation in infected tissues. The physiological meaning of this distinct use of sugars for defence remains to be determined....
Continue reading Relative fructose content and tomato susceptibility to Botrytis cinerea
Meloidogyne graminicola is responsible for production losses in rice (Oryza sativa) in Asia and Latin America. Petitot et al. assess the cytological and molecular mechanisms underlying nematode resistance identified in African rice (Oryza glaberrima). Rice resistance responses act at several steps along the nematode life-cycle to limit penetration and feeding site development, preventing efficient nematode reproduction. This study provides a novel set of candidate genes for O. glaberrima resistance to nematodes. This paper is part of the Annals of Botany Special Issue on Plant Immunity. It will be free access till June 2017 and after April 2018.
Continue reading Rice resistance responses to the root-knot nematode Meloidogyne graminicola
Are winter and summer dormancy symmetrical seasonal adaptive strategies?
Continue reading Comparison of winter and summer dormancy in herbaceous perennial species
Robustness, the inverse of noise, is a molecularly programmed feature of biological systems. The molecular networks of some organismal phenotypes like development are designed to maximize robustness, while other phenotypes like disease resistance have their pathways structured to allow for decreased robustness/increased noise to counteract evolution in the attacking organism. Lachowiec et al. describe the specific molecular components that are utilized in networks to finely tune the proper level of robustness/noise for an array of phenotypes.
Continue reading Molecular mechanisms of noise and robustness
Chrysolaena obovata, an aster of the Brazilian Cerrado, presents seasonal growth, marked by senescence of aerial organs in winter and subsequent regrowth at the end of this season. The underground reserve organs, the rhizophores, accumulate inulin-type fructans and confer tolerance to drought and low temperature. Fructans and fructan-metabolizing enzymes show a characteristic spatial and temporal distribution in the rhizophores during the developmental cycle. Previous studies have shown correlations between abscisic acid (ABA) or indole acetic acid (IAA), fructans, dormancy and tolerance to drought and cold, but the signalling mechanism for the beginning of dormancy and sprouting in this species is...
Continue reading Co-ordinated carbohydrate metabolism and hormone synthesis enables plants to survive unfavourable field conditions
This review focuses on the possible mechanisms underlying the promotion of plant Fe acquisition by soil micro-organisms.
Continue reading An underground tale: contribution of microbial activity to plant iron acquisition
A novel example of a bacterial effector directly manipulating core regulators of hormone signaling to facilitate infection.
Continue reading Another bacterial trick to manipulate plant hormone-mediated responses
The gaseous hormone ethylene plays multiple roles in regulating plant growth and development.
Continue reading Mechanisms of signal transduction by ethylene
This year’s transit of Venus reminds me – albeit belatedly – to applaud the hard-working botanists of the Universities of Nottingham (UK), Ghent (Belgium), Leeds (UK) and Lyon (France) who have been exploring a more down-to-Earth – and ultimately more useful? – kind of Venus. Like all good phytologists they are interested in understanding the role of auxin in plant development. In order to get a better understanding of auxin biology it is important to identify where it actually works inside plant cells; a tall order, locating a tiny molecule in a small cell. Hitherto, a so-called DR5-based protocol was employed...
Continue reading Transient VENUS
At the moment, I am teaching plant hormones in our course on plant cell and developmental biology (BS1003). Fortunately, hormones and development link well with Halloween this year: we have witches, sitting on a broom, with a pumpkin, and for good measure some brightly colored leaves falling around them. Where is the connection? The broom is a good point to start : many species of trees have “witch’s brooms” on them, structures where a large number of small twigs arise from one region of a branch or the main trunk. The uncontrolled outgrowths are caused by other organisms which either...
Continue reading Botany for Halloween – Witches, Brooms and PumpkinsBotany One is a blog run by the Annals of Botany Company, a non-profit educational charity.
In addition to Botany One, the company currently publishes three journals, the Annals of Botany, AoB PLANTS, and in silico Plants.
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