Rewiring of primary metabolism for ammonium recycling under short-term low CO treatment - its implication for C evolution.

The dramatic decrease in atmospheric CO concentration during Oligocene was proposed as directly linked to C evolution. However, it remains unclear how the decreased CO concentration directly facilitate C evolution, besides its role as a selection pressure. We conducted a systematic transcriptomics and metabolomics analysis under short-term low CO condition and found that grown under this condition showed 1) increased expression of most genes encoding C-related enzymes and transporters; 2) increased expression of genes involved in photorespiration and pathways related to carbon skeleton generation for ammonium refixation; 3) increased expression of genes directly involved in ammonium refixation.

The evolution of stomatal traits along the trajectory toward C4 photosynthesis.

C4 photosynthesis optimizes plant carbon and water relations, allowing high photosynthetic rates with low stomatal conductance. Stomata have long been considered a part of the C4 syndrome. However, it remains unclear how stomatal traits evolved along the path from C3 to C4.

EXPLICIT-Kinase: A gene expression predictor for dissecting the functions of the Arabidopsis kinome.

Protein kinases regulate virtually all cellular processes, but it remains challenging to determine the functions of all protein kinases, collectively called the "kinome", in any species. We developed a computational approach called EXPLICIT-Kinase to predict the functions of the Arabidopsis kinome. Because the activities of many kinases can be regulated transcriptionally, their gene expression patterns provide clues to their functions.