Новости науки и практики // Июль 2022

Protein kinases in plant responses to drought, salt, and cold stress

Chen et al. summarize recent progress on understanding plant drought, salt, and cold stress responses, with a focus on signal perception and transduction by different protein kinases, especially sucrose nonfermenting1 (SNF1)-related protein kinases (SnRKs), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades, calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs/CPKs), and receptor-like kinases (RLKs).

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jipb.13061

New insights into effects of membrane proteins on plant growth

Scientists have revealed two enzymes that regulate protein degradation of proteins in the cell membrane of plants, and established the roles they play in plant growth and development.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220603124903.htm

Rapid biosensor development using plant hormone receptors as reprogrammable scaffolds

Beltrán et al. describe an approach for the rapid engineering of biosensors using PYR1 (Pyrabactin Resistance 1), a plant abscisic acid (ABA) receptor with a malleable ligand-binding pocket and a requirement for ligand-induced heterodimerization, which facilitates the construction of sense–response functions.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-022-01364-5?utm_campaign=The%20Week%20in%20Botany&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter

Endocytic trafficking promotes vacuolar enlargements for fast cell expansion rates in plants

Dünser et al. show that the cellular and vacuolar size expansions are coordinated. By developing a pharmacological tool, they enabled the investigation of membrane delivery to the vacuole during cellular expansion.

https://elifesciences.org/articles/75945?utm_campaign=The%20Week%20in%20Botany&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter

Toward a general theory of plant carbon economics

Castorena et al. synthesize two optimality theories to offer a general theory of plant carbon economics, named as Gmax theory, that shows how life-history variation is limited to phenotypes that have an approximately similar lifetime net carbon gain per body mass. In consequence, fast–slow economics spectra are the result of trait combinations obtaining similar lifetime net carbon gains from leaves and similar net carbon investment costs in stems, roots, and reproductive organs.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534722001318?dgcid=author&utm_campaign=The%20Week%20in%20Botany&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter

On the trail of auxin: reporters and sensors

Jedličková et al. focus on different types of auxin reporters and biosensors used to monitor auxin distribution and its dynamics, as well as auxin signaling, at the cellular and tissue levels in different plant species. They provide a brief history of each reporter and biosensor group and explain their principles and utilities.

https://academic.oup.com/plcell/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/plcell/koac179/6609216?login=false&redirectedFrom=fulltext&utm_campaign=The%20Week%20in%20Botany&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter

Edge-based growth control in Arabidopsis involves two cell wall-associated Receptor-Like Proteins

Elliott et al. describe two Receptor-Like Proteins, RLP4 and RLP4-L1, which occupy a unique polarity domain at cell edges established through a targeted secretory transport pathway. They show that at cell edges, RLP4s associate with the cell wall via their extracellular domain, and contribute to directional growth control in Arabidopsis.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.10.495700v1?utm_campaign=The%20Week%20in%20Botany&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter

Show me your ID: NLR immune receptors with integrated domains in plants

Marchal et al. first summarize our current understanding of NLR-ID activation upon effector binding, focusing on the NLR pairs Pik-1/Pik-2, RGA4/RGA5, and RRS1/RPS4, then they speculate on their potential oligomerization into resistosomes as it was recently shown for certain canonical plant NLRs.

https://portlandpress.com/essaysbiochem/article/doi/10.1042/EBC20210084/231370/Show-me-your-ID-NLR-immune-receptors-with?utm_campaign=social-digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newslit

What happens when plants have stress reactions to touch

A 30-year-old genetic mystery has been solved. It has previously been established that touch can trigger stress reactions in plants. However, the molecular models for explaining this process have been quite spartan so far. Now researchers have found genetic keys that explain how plants respond so strongly to mechanical stimuli. Cracking this code could help lead to higher yields and improved stress resistance in crops in the future.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/05/220523102237.htm

Molecular characterization of cyanobacterial short‐chain prenyltransferases and discovery of a novel GGPP phosphatase

Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotes with strong potential to be used for industrial terpenoid production. However, the key enzymes forming the principal terpenoid building blocks, called short‐chain prenyltransferases (SPTs), are insufficiently characterized. Here, we examined SPTs in the model cyanobacteria Synechococcus elongatus sp. PCC 7942 and Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Each species has a single putative SPT (SeCrtE and SyCrtE, respectively).

https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/febs.16556