Plant Biology

Adenylnucleotide-mediated binding of the PII-like protein SbtB contributes to controlling activity of the cyanobacterial bicarbonate transporter SbtA

1. Britta Förster
2. Bratati Mukherjee
3. Loraine M. Rourke
4. Joe A. Kaczmarski
5. Colin J. Jackson
6. G. Dean Price

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study is of fundamental importance, addressing the regulation of the carbon concentrating mechanism in cyanobacteria. It is a well-controlled investigation of low affinity regulatory binding of small molecules, processes that are typically difficult to examine. The work provides compelling evidence that the adenylate pool, rather than any single metabolite, regulates a key bicarbonate transporter (SbtA) to provide efficient bicarbonate supply while preventing futile cycling that can result from escape of unfixed CO2.

Reviewed by eLife

Genome editing of an African elite rice variety confers resistance against endemic and emerging Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae strains

1. Van Schepler-Luu
2. Coline Sciallano
3. Melissa Stiebner
4. Chonghui Ji
5. Gabriel Boulard
6. Amadou Diallo
7. Florence Auguy
8. Si Nian Char
9. Yugander Arra
10. Kyrylo Schenstnyi
11. Marcel Buchholzer
12. Eliza PI Loo
13. Atugonza L Bilaro
14. David Lihepanyama
15. Mohammed Mkuya
16. Rosemary Murori
17. Ricardo Oliva
18. Sebastien Cunnac
19. Bing Yang
20. Boris Szurek
21. Wolf B Frommer

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study shows that new, virulent genotypes of Xanthomonas oryze pv. oryzae, that are similar to strains present in east Asia, cause outbreaks of bacterial blight of rice in Tanzania. The authors' use of CRISPR-based gene editing on multiple pathogen targets in an elite African rice variety to create lines resistant to both endemic and emerging pathogen strains in Africa makes for a compelling contribution to meet this alarming development. The work describing the new strains of the pathogen is solid but could be stronger if there were genome sequence data for all strains examined and a clearer presentation of recent disease outbreaks and their severity.

Reviewed by eLife

Orchid seed germination through auto-activation of mycorrhizal symbiosis signaling regulated by gibberellin

1. Chihiro Miura
2. Yuki Furui
3. Tatsuki Yamamoto
4. Yuri Kanno
5. Masaya Honjo
6. Katsushi Yamaguchi
7. Kenji Suetsugu
8. Takahiro Yagame
9. Mitsunori Seo
10. Shuji Shigenobu
11. Masahide Yamato
12. Hironori Kaminaka

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

The photosystem I supercomplex from a primordial green alga Ostreococcus tauri harbors three light-harvesting complex trimers

1. Asako Ishii
2. Jianyu Shan
3. Xin Sheng
4. Eunchul Kim
5. Akimasa Watanabe
6. Makio Yokono
7. Chiyo Noda
8. Chihong Song
9. Kazuyoshi Murata
10. Zhenfeng Liu
11. Jun Minagawa

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The fundamental work represents an important contribution to our understanding of the diversity of photosynthetic mechanisms across the branches of phototrophic life, with the first high-resolution structure (2.9 Å) of a photosynthetic complex from a primitive green alga. This is a valuable resource for understanding function and evolution of light-harvesting antennas. The evidence is convincing in suggesting that the mechanism found here is distinct from the classical antenna state transitions seen in other organisms studied thus far.

Reviewed by eLife

Association Mapping Across a Multitude of Traits Collected in Diverse Environments Identifies Pleiotropic Loci in Maize

1. Ravi V. Mural
2. Guangchao Sun
3. Marcin Grzybowski
4. Michael C. Tross
5. Hongyu Jin
6. Christine Smith
7. Linsey Newton
8. Carson M. Andorf
9. Margaret R. Woodhouse
10. Addie M. Thompson
11. Brandi Sigmon
12. James C. Schnable

Reviewed by GigaScience

A chromosome-level reference genome of Ensete glaucum gives insight into diversity and chromosomal and repetitive sequence evolution in the Musaceae

1. Ziwei Wang
2. Mathieu Rouard
3. Manosh Kumar Biswas
4. Gaetan Droc
5. Dongli Cui
6. Nicolas Roux
7. Franc-Christophe Baurens
8. Xue-Jun Ge
9. Trude Schwarzacher
10. Pat (J S) Heslop-Harrison
11. Qing Liu

Reviewed by GigaScience

Domestication and lowland adaptation of coastal preceramic maize from Paredones, Peru

1. Miguel Vallebueno-Estrada
2. Guillermo G Hernández-Robles
3. Eduardo González-Orozco
4. Ivan Lopez-Valdivia
5. Teresa Rosales Tham
6. Víctor Vásquez Sánchez
7. Kelly Swarts
8. Tom D Dillehay
9. Jean-Philippe Vielle-Calzada
10. Rafael Montiel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In this important article, the authors characterize ancient DNA from maize unearthed in archaeological contexts from Paredones and Huaca Prieta in the Chicama river valley of Peru, recovered by painstakingly controlled excavation. The genetic evidence is compelling, albeit from a small sample size, but the dating evidence, despite the excellent archaeological context, is inadequate. Since the age of the samples is so important for the inferences, the individual radiocarbon determinations should be subject to further scrutiny.

Reviewed by eLife

Vernalization-triggered expression of the antisense transcript COOLAIR is mediated by CBF genes

1. Myeongjune Jeon
2. Goowon Jeong
3. Yupeng Yang
4. Xiao Luo
5. Daesong Jeong
6. Jinseul Kyung
7. Youbong Hyun
8. Yuehui He
9. Ilha Lee

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important paper advances the understanding, in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, of the molecular basis of the promotion of flowering in the spring by exposure to winter cold through a process known as vernalization. In Arabidopsis, there are two classes of long non-coding RNAs produced only when plants are in the cold, and this work provides compelling evidence that the cold-induced expression of one of these (COOLAIR) involves C-repeat binding factor proteins that bind to cognate binding elements in the COOLAIR promoter, but also that COOLAIR is not required for the vernalization-mediated promotion of flowering under standard laboratory conditions in which the vernalization response is measured.

Reviewed by eLife

Mutations in NAKED-ENDOSPERM IDD genes reveal functional interactions with SCARECROW and a maternal influence on leaf patterning in C ₄ grasses

1. Thomas E. Hughes
2. Olga Sedelnikova
3. Mimi Thomas
4. Jane A. Langdale

Reviewed by Review Commons

Structure of Dunaliella photosystem II reveals conformational flexibility of stacked and unstacked supercomplexes

1. Ido Caspy
2. Maria Fadeeva
3. Yuval Mazor
4. Nathan Nelson

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The work of Caspy and coworkers resolves the cryo-EM structures of stacked and unstacked PSII supercomplexes of Dunaliella, revealing unexpected connectivity and conformational flexibility, with intriguing implications for the function and regulation of photosynthesis.

Reviewed by eLife