Pathogen Tactics to Manipulate Plant Cell Death.

Cell death is a vital process for multicellular organisms. Programmed cell death (PCD) functions in a variety of processes including growth, development, and immune responses for homeostasis maintenance. In particular, plants and animals utilize PCD to control pathogen invasion and infected cell populations.

An improved high-throughput screening assay for tunicamycin sensitivity in Arabidopsis seedlings.

Tunicamycin (Tm) sensitivity assays are a useful method for studies of endoplasmic reticulum stress and the unfolded protein response in eukaryotic cells. While Tm sensitivity and Tm recovery assays have been previously described, these existing methods are time-consuming, labor intensive, and subjected to mechanical wounding. This study shows an improved method of testing Tm sensitivity in Arabidopsis using liquid Murashige and Skoog medium versus the traditional solid agar plates.

Characterization of Arabidopsis thaliana GCN2 kinase roles in seed germination and plant development.

Eukaryotic GCN2 (general control nonderepressible 2) is a serine/threonine protein kinase that plays an essential role in modulating amino acid metabolism in response to nutrient deprivation. A wide spectrum of GCN2 functions in yeast and mammals has been characterized that spans from responses to amino acid deficiency, development, differentiation and proper functions of mammalian organs to organism's life span, tumor cell survival and immune responses. Here we demonstrate that Arabidopsis thaliana GCN2 (AtGCN2) plays crucial roles in plant growth and development.