Новости науки и практики // Август 2017

Baker's yeast can help plants cope with soil contamination

Most plant species, including crops, cannot tolerate the toxic effects of soil pollutants, which dramatically impair their growth and development. In a new study, a research team discovered that two genes from baker's yeast can increase plant resistance to a broad range of toxic substances, enabling their growth in contaminated soils.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170703083248.htm

Plant cinema' shows the flow of energy

An international team of researchers led by the University of Bonn shows how ATP behaves in the different parts of living seedlings and the impact of stress on their fuel status. The results could inform breeding of more resistant crop varieties.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-07/uob-cs071817.php

Genetics may lie at the heart of crop yield limitation

You might think that plants grow according to how much nutrition, water and sunlight they are exposed to, but new research shows that the plant's own genetics may be the real limiting factor.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170705132903.htm

Lupin roots observed in the act of drinking

Lupins produce colourful blossoms and nutritious beans. Just how these plants draw water has now for the first time been observed in three dimensions by a team at the HZB-BER II neutron source in Berlin. They improved the temporal resolution of neutron tomography more than one-hundred-fold and obtained a detailed 3D image every ten seconds. This ultrafast neutron tomography is suitable as well for analyses of dynamic processes in other materials.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170726102939.htm

Растения общаются с помощью повилики

Растения предупреждают друг друга о вредителях по «телефонным проводам» из паразитической повилики.

https://www.nkj.ru/news/31829/

Key genes in nitrogen utilization in tobacco identified

The identification of these genes could eventually lead to the development of plants that require less nitrogen

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-07/raba-kgi070317.php

Impact of transposable elements on polyploid plant genomes

Transposable elements (TEs), together with polyploidization have a key role in plant evolution, generating changes in genome size, as well as acting as a source for new coding and regulatory genetic sequences.Vicient and Casacubertareview the main consequences of TE activity in plant genomes and gene evolution, in particular after polyploidization events.

https://aobblog.com/2017/07/impact-transposable-elements-polyploid-plant-genomes/

Tonoplast-localized nitrate uptake transporters involved in vacuolar nitrate efflux and reallocation inArabidopsis

A great proportion of nitrate taken up by plants is stored in vacuoles. Vacuolar nitrate accumulation and release is of great importance to nitrate reallocation and efficient utilization. However, how plants mediate nitrate efflux from vacuoles to cytoplasm is largely unknown.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06744-5

How gene silencing works in plants

Scientists have recently published a study that means an advance in the knowledge of epigenetic regulation by means of Polycomb-group proteins in plants.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170725122059.htm 

New non-photosynthesizing plant species discovered on Ishigaki island, Japan

Some plant species have abandoned photosynthesis, instead feeding off the roots of host fungi such as mushrooms and mold. These plants (known as mycoheterotrophs) only show themselves above ground when fruiting or in flower. Many of them have very short flowering periods and are small in size, making them hard to find and classify. The discovery of a new plant species in Japan is a very rare event as the flora of this region have been thoroughly documented, but mycoheterotrophs are an exception.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-07/ku-nnp071917.php 

Как растения защищаются от солнца

Избыток фотонов включает в клетках растений и зеленых водорослей специальный фотозащитный белок, защищающий их от «солнечных ожогов».

https://www.nkj.ru/news/31802/

Antioxidant responses under salinity and drought in three wild monocots

Scientists  studied the level of oxidative stress and the activation of antioxidant responses in three rush species – sea rush (Juncus maritimus), spiny rush (J. acutus) and jointleaf rush (J. articulatus) – subjected to salt and water stress treatments.

https://aobblog.com/2017/06/antioxidant-responses-salinity-drought-three-wild-monocots/ 

How cells control nuclear size becomes clearer

A new study has discovered that hoarding of genetic materials (mRNA) and proteins by the nucleus causes it to bulk up and is enabled by the amount of nuclear membrane supplied.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170711092643.htm 

No gene is an island

Genes do not exist in isolation. Like beads on a string, they sit next to each other on the chromosomes. So far, little has been known about how the position of a gene on a chromosome affects its evolution. A new study shows that a gene's neighborhood can influence whether and how the activity of a gene changes.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170725083649.htm 

Overexpression of SlPRE2, an atypical bHLH transcription factor, affects plant morphology and fruit pigment accumulation in tomato

These results suggest that SlPRE2 affects plant morphology and is a negative regulator of fruit pigment accumulation.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-04092-y

Scientists genetically engineer the world’s first blue chrysanthemum

Researchers have created a genuinely blue chrysanthemum by adding two genes to the normally pink or reddish flower.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/scientists-genetically-engineer-world-s-first-blue-chrysanthemum

Genetic structure of Tamarix taklamakanensis

In a new study published in AoB PLANTS Xiao et al. assessed the genetic diversity and structure of 15 T. taklamakanensis populations in the Tarim Basin, China. Based on seven microsatellite loci, they found that the total gene diversity was moderate, whereas the allelic diversity was low; they also found high levels of gene flow among populations in the centre of Tarim Basin, but higher levels of genetic differentiation in geographically outlying populations. Their study provides useful information for the conservation and restoration of this endangered shrub.

https://aobblog.com/2017/07/genetic-structure-tamarix-taklamakanensis/