ARABIDOPSIS RESEARCH ROUND-UP

Another week, another round-up of papers from the UK Arabidopsis research community. This week, we have two papers co-authored by GARNet committee member John Doonan at IBERS, as well as contributions from the John Innes Centre, and the Universities of Birmingham, Lancaster and Leeds. All are open access this week too!

• Zheng T, Nibau C, Phillips DW, Jenkins G, Armstrong SJ and Doonan JH. CDKG1 protein kinase is essential for synapsis and male meiosis at high ambient temperature in Arabidopsis thaliana. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 3 January 2014. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1318460111. [Open Access]

GARNet committee member John Doonan and his team from IBERS at Aberystwyth University, along with colleagues at the John Innes Centre and the University of Birmingham, have identified that the CDKG1/CYCLINL complex is required for synapsis and recombination during male meiosis in Arabidopsis. Furthermore, induced mutations in the cdkg1 gene causes temperature-senstitive failure of meiosis, suggesting a mechanism for the phenomenon of thermal sensitivity in male meiosis.

• Passaia G, Queval G, Bai J, Margis-Pinheiro M and Foyer CH. The effects of redox controls mediated by glutathione peroxidases on root architecture in Arabidopsis thaliana. Journal of Experimental Botany, 27 January 2014. DOI: 10.1093/jxb/ert486. [Open Access]

With Brazilian and Chinese colleagues, the Foyer lab at the University of Leeds present this Journal of Experimental Botany paper, in which they characterize the functions of different isoforms of plant glutathione peroxidases (GPXs) in Arabidopsis. Known to fulfil important functions in oxidative signaling, GPX mutants, transformed with T-DNA, were all found to have altered root architecture compared to the wild type.

• Gegas VC, Wargent JJ, Pesquet E, Granqvist E, Paul ND and Doonan JH. Endopolyploidy as a potential altermative adaptive strategy for Arabidopsis leaf size variation in response to UV-B. Journal of Experimental Botany, 27 January 2014. DOI: 110.1093/jxb/ert473. [Open Access]

Here’s another offering from GARNet committee member John Doonan at IBERS, this time collaborating with researchers from the John Innes Centre and the University of Lancaster. This time, the group investigated the causes and effects of endoreduplication – the replication of chromosomes within a cell without subsequent cell division. In various Arabidopsis accessions, it was found that high endopolyploidy was associated with increased leaf size, and that UV-B radiation was a significant positive climatic predictor for endopolyploidy.