Новости науки и практики // Июль 2021

Time to retire? A life‐changing decision made by NAC transcription factors

Commentary on VviNAC33 promotes organ de-greening and represses vegetative growth during the vegetative-to-mature phase transition in grapevine.

https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.17451

Regulation of touch-stimulated de novo root regeneration from Arabidopsis leaves

Root regeneration from the wounded leaf requisites touch-driven auxin accumulation and PLETHORA regulatory module.

https://academic.oup.com/plphys/advance-article/doi/10.1093/plphys/kiab286/6306041

Plant physiology: A tale of three proteins

Biologists have shown that 'supervisor' and 'motivator' proteins are required to enable a third factor to perform its function in photosynthesis.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210628152906.htm

The “social networks” of plant mitochondria

Plant mitochondria interact with each other using social networks to share crucial information for their proper functioning.

https://www.botany.one/2021/06/the-social-networks-of-plant-mitochondria

How to beat the heat: Memory mechanism allows plants to adapt to heat stress

Researchers have found that plants adapt to heat stress via a specific 'memory' mechanism. The JUMONJI family of proteins can control small heat shock genes, allowing plants to become heat tolerant for better adaptation to future heat stress. This research is applicable to a broad range of scientific fields and understanding this mechanism could contribute to maintaining the food supply under global warming conditions.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210610091025.htm

New approach can add diversity to crop species without breeding GMOs

Genetic technique edits every chloroplast in a plant, but does not change nuclear DNA of offspring.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-07/uot-nac062721.php

New study sheds light on evolution of photosynthesis

The scientists reviewed research on the photosynthetic amoeba Paulinella, which is a model to explore a fundamental question about eukaryote evolution: why was there a single origin of algae and plants? That is, why did photosynthesis by primary plastid endosymbiosis not originate multiple times in the tree of life?

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/ru-nss062821.php

Universal mechanism of regulation in plant cells discovered

In pioneering work, a German-Japanese research team at BESSY II has been able to determine the 3D structure of a metalloprotein that plays an important role as a catalyst in all plant cells.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/hbfm-umo062121.php

Damage control: Plants juggle genome maintenance and growth by being organized

Researchers from Nara Institute of Science and Technology find that control of the plant hormones cytokinin and auxin help damaged plants to minimize cell death while maintaining their genomes and organ development.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/nios-dcp061321.php

Plants get a faster start to their day than we think

There is a peak of gene activity within an hour of dawn; many of these genes code for transcription factors - proteins that regulate expression of a host of downstream genes - with roles related to light, stress and growth hormones, but the detail of how this peak is controlled is not understood.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/uoc-pga060721.php

Cell size controlled in plants using DNA content as an internal scale

In the Arabidopsis meristem, cell sizes are regularized despite asymmetric cell divisions. D'Ario et al. describe a balanced regulatory system that controls the duration of the growth phase of the cell cycle preceding DNA synthesis.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6547/1176

Evaluating the contribution of osmotic and oxidative stress components on barley growth under salt stress

The objective of this study was to elucidate the contribution of osmotic and oxidative stress components in leaves and roots growth under salt stress.

https://academic.oup.com/aobpla/advance-article/doi/10.1093/aobpla/plab034/6296460?searchresult=1

Reprogramming plant specialized metabolism by manipulating protein kinases

Being sessile, plants have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to balance between
growth and defense to survive in the harsh environment. The transition from growth
to defense is commonly achieved by factors, such as protein kinases (PKs) and
transcription factors, that initiate signal transduction and regulate specialized
metabolism. Plants produce an array of lineage-specific specialized metabolites for
chemical defense and stress tolerance.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42994-021-00053-2

Chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA editing in plants

Gene editing in plant organelles, an unmet need for plant genetics and biotechnology, has been hampered by the lack of appropriate tools for targeting DNA in these organelles.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-021-00943-9

Cells cram DNA into the nucleus in two distinct ways

A cell’s complete genetic blueprint, or genome, is densely packed into chromosomes, condensing meters of DNA into a minuscule cellular vessel only micrometers wide. But how chromosomes fold to fit inside the nuclei of diverse species is unclear. There appear to be two methods to stuff all of that DNA in, researchers report in Science. Cells can even flip-flop which arrangement they have by inactivating a molecule called condensin II, the team found.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cells-nucleus-dna-chromosomes-genome-organization