How does a plant sense stress and pass those signals around its body? Corentin Dourmap and colleagues have reviewed the role of mitochondria in the plant cell and how they interact with stress signalling. Image: Canva...
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is well-known for its role in cells as acting almost like currency for energy storage. Research by Elsa Matthus and colleagues shows that it can also play an important role outside the cell...
The complex networks and signalling pathways that equip plants to cope with environmental challenges in terrestrial environments developed over evolutionary time. Exposing plants to novel environments presents...
Plant defence reaction is associated with activation of primary metabolic pathways. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH), the key enzyme of the oxidative pentose phosphate (OPP), pathway is involved in plant...
Polarisation and asymmetrical division generating the Poaceous subsidiary cells constitutes a very attractive model for the study of local intercellular stimulation. Auxin operates as an inductive stimulus while PIN...
The non-specific phospholipases C (NPC) are recently discovered new subclass of plant phospholipases. Most of them have not yet been characterised thoroughly. Krčková et al. prepare and purify Arabidopsis thaliana NPC2...
To establish infections, plant viruses effect profound alterations to host physiology that disturb endogenous processes and contribute to the development of disease symptoms. Conti et al. summarise recently described...
Decreased crop photosynthetic rates are a major consequence of root flooding as severe perturbations of the photosynthetic machinery result from elevated levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Phytoglobins (Pgbs) are...
The 2-Cys peroxiredoxin (Prx) A protein of Arabidopsis thaliana performs the dual functions of a peroxidase and a molecular chaperone depending on its conformation and the metabolic conditions. However, the precise...
Plants regulate cellular oxygen partial pressures (pO2), together with reduction/oxidation (redox) state in order to manage rapid developmental transitions such as bud burst after a period of quiescence. However, our...
The development of seedlings involves many morphological, physiological and biochemical processes, which are controlled by many factors. Some reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS and RNS, respectively) are...
Loss of seed viability has been associated with deteriorative processes that are partly caused by oxidative damage. The breaking of dormancy, a seed trait that prevents germination in unfavourable seasons, has also been...
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are considered to be detrimental to seed viability. However, recent studies have demonstrated that ROS have key roles in seed germination particularly in the release of seed dormancy and...