Plant Biology

Impact of energy limitations on function and resilience in long-wavelength Photosystem II

1. Stefania Viola
2. William Roseby
3. Stefano Santabarbara
4. Dennis Nürnberg
5. Ricardo Assunção
6. Holger Dau
7. Julien Sellés
8. Alain Boussac
9. Andrea Fantuzzi
10. A William Rutherford

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The work describes the energetic constraints and preferred operating conditions of these "strategies" in particular on how nature has solved the problem of low energy "headroom'" required to prevent deleterious back reactions while maintaining efficient energy storage. The differences between the species are quite interesting and show that nature has evolved multiple solutions to fundamental limitations. Given the importance of understanding and improving the efficiency of photosynthesis, and the new insights revealed, the work will be of interest to a broad audience.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Predicting plant biomass accumulation from image-derived parameters

1. Dijun Chen
2. Rongli Shi
3. Jean-Michel Pape
4. Kerstin Neumann
5. Daniel Arend
6. Andreas Graner
7. Ming Chen
8. Christian Klukas

Reviewed by GigaScience

Perception of a conserved family of plant signalling peptides by the receptor kinase HSL3

1. Jack Rhodes
2. Andra-Octavia Roman
3. Marta Bjornson
4. Benjamin Brandt
5. Paul Derbyshire
6. Michele Wyler
7. Marc W Schmid
8. Frank LH Menke
9. Julia Santiago
10. Cyril Zipfel

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Beginning with transcriptome data, Rhodes et al. identify a new family of peptides with signalling function called CTNIP in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. They use an elegant biochemical capture approach to pinpoint the SERK-dependent LRR receptor kinase HSL3 as the only receptor for these peptides. They provide convincing genetic and biochemical evidence that HSL3 binds CTNIP and that CTNIP perception triggers HSL3-dependent cytoplasmic calcium influx, ROS production and transcriptional changes. Furthermore, they provide initial evidence that the CTNIP-HSL3 module may participate in regulating root growth.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

A hypothesis on the capacity of plant odorant-binding proteins to bind volatile isoprenoids based on in silico evidences

1. Deborah Giordano
2. Angelo Facchiano
3. Sabato D'Auria
4. Francesco Loreto

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The chemical sensing mechanisms of plants, which are largely unknown, are a topic of broad interest. The authors hypothesise that plant chemical receptors may be transporter proteins or odorant binding proteins analogous to those found in animals. The authors have identified a list of plant proteins with possible odorant binding activity and they predict binding constants for relevant odorants. The calculated binding constants are generally very weak in comparison to known animal odorant binding proteins (i.e., would require much higher concentrations of odor for detection). The in silico investigation, while inspiring, leaves many open questions, for example whether or not there is evidence for functional analogy between plant and animal odorant binding proteins.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript.The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Plant Trans-Golgi Network/Early Endosome pH regulation requires Cation Chloride Cotransporter (CCC1)

1. Daniel W McKay
2. Heather E McFarlane
3. Yue Qu
4. Apriadi Situmorang
5. Matthew Gilliham
6. Stefanie Wege

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Presented here is a study on the role of cation chloride cotransporter CCC1 as a key regulator of the plant Trans-Golgi/Early Endosome trafficking network. While the work is well controlled and presented overall, the reviewers judged the data supporting localization of CCC1 to TGN/EE as not being sufficiently clear, as was the role of CCC1 in endocytosis, which is one of the main conclusions. These points can be clarified with future careful experimentation.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript.The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Plant SYP12 syntaxins mediate an evolutionarily conserved general immunity to filamentous pathogens

1. Hector M Rubiato
2. Mengqi Liu
3. Richard J O'Connell
4. Mads E Nielsen

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The study provides evidence that PEN1 and SYP122 regulate defense structures against filamentous pathogen infection including papillae formation and encasement of haustoria; this appears to be an ancient defense mechanism in land plants. If the findings that PEN1 and its close homolog SYP122 play an overlapping role in pre- and post-invasive immunity against cell-wall penetrating filamentous pathogens could be further validated, this would advance our understanding of callosic papilla/encasement-based nonhost defense mechanisms.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Circadian regulation of the transcriptome in a complex polyploid crop

1. Hannah Rees
2. Rachel Rusholme-Pilcher
3. Paul Bailey
4. Joshua Colmer
5. Benjamen White
6. Connor Reynolds
7. Sabrina Jaye Ward
8. Benedict Coombes
9. Calum A. Graham
10. Luíza Lane de Barros Dantas
11. Antony N. Dodd
12. Anthony Hall

Reviewed by Review Commons

Computational modeling and quantitative physiology reveal central parameters for brassinosteroid-regulated early cell physiological processes linked to elongation growth of the Arabidopsis root

1. Ruth Großeholz
2. Friederike Wanke
3. Leander Rohr
4. Nina Glöckner
5. Luiselotte Rausch
6. Stefan Scholl
7. Emanuele Scacchi
8. Amelie-Jette Spazierer
9. Lana Shabala
10. Sergey Shabala
11. Karin Schumacher
12. Ursula Kummer
13. Klaus Harter

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This study addresses the effect of brassinosteroid hormones on acidification of the apoplast. The authors characterize a novel ionic channel involved in this process as well as a gradient of H+-ATPase activity, providing evidence for a fast brassinosteroid response that has so far received little attention. A combination of computational modeling and quantitative cell physiology is used to explain the regulation of proton pumping into Arabidopsis root cell walls. The authors show that regulation of AHA proton pump activity by the activated brassinosteroid receptor complex could potentially explain the experimentally determined zonation of root cell wall pH and growth. The work will be of interest to plant biologists as well as cell biologists in general.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

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

1. Kai Dünser
2. Maria Schöller
3. Ann-Kathrin Rößling
4. Christian Löfke
5. Nannan Xiao
6. Barbora Pařízková
7. Stanislav Melnik
8. Marta Rodriguez-Franco
9. Eva Stöger
10. Ondřej Novák
11. Jürgen Kleine-Vehn

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Plant cells can grow to extraordinarily large volumes; Arabidopsis root cells, for example, can expand beyond 50um long. Vacuole expansion is correlated with cell elongation, presumably to "fill up" the volume of the cell without requiring a tremendous volume of cytoplasm. Here, the authors carefully characterize a new small molecule inhibitor of endocytic trafficking to the vacuole. This new tool will be valuable to researchers studying endocytic trafficking and vacuole biogenesis in plants.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Uncovering natural variation in root system architecture and growth dynamics using a robotics-assisted phenomics platform

1. Therese LaRue
2. Heike Lindner
3. Ankit Srinivas
4. Moises Exposito-Alonso
5. Guillaume Lobet
6. José R Dinneny

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The authors present an automated system for phenotyping root system architecture based on bioluminescent roots resulting from a constitutively expressed luciferase transgene (GLO-Root). They have developed a robotics-assisted phenotyping platform and an automated image analysis pipeline for high throughput analysis. An impressive array of 93 luciferase expressing Arabidopsis thaliana accessions provides a major resource for understanding the genetic basis for root system architecture variation in response to a range of environmental conditions. The work will be of interest to plant biologists and all those studying genetic variation in plants.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife