A genomic journey across the past, present, and future of South American maize.

Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) diverged from one of its wild relatives, the teosinte Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, in the lowlands of southwest Mexico ~9000 years ago.

Mobile forms of carbon in trees: metabolism and transport.

Plants constitute 80% of the biomass on earth, and almost two-thirds of this biomass is found in wood. Wood formation is a carbon (C)-demanding process and relies on C transport from photosynthetic tissues. Thus, understanding the transport process is of major interest for understanding terrestrial biomass formation.

Multiomics analyses reveal the roles of the ASR1 transcription factor in tomato fruits.

The transcription factor ASR1 (ABA, STRESS, RIPENING 1) plays multiple roles in plant responses to abiotic stresses as well as being involved in the regulation of central metabolism in several plant species. However, despite the high expression of ASR1 in tomato fruits, large scale analyses to uncover its function in fruits are still lacking. In order to study its function in the context of fruit ripening, we performed a multiomics analysis of ASR1-antisense transgenic tomato fruits at the transcriptome and metabolome levels.

Sucrose synthase determines carbon allocation in developing wood and alters carbon flow at the whole tree level in aspen.

Despite the ecological and industrial importance of biomass accumulation in wood, the control of carbon (C) allocation to this tissue and to other tree tissues remain poorly understood. We studied sucrose synthase (SUS) to clarify its role in biomass formation and C metabolism at the whole tree level in hybrid aspen (Populus tremula × tremuloides). To this end, we analysed source leaves, phloem, developing wood, and roots of SUSRNAi trees using a combination of metabolite profiling, CO pulse labelling experiments, and long-term field experiments.

A Tomato Tocopherol-Binding Protein Sheds Light on Intracellular α-Tocopherol Metabolism in Plants.

Tocopherols are non-polar compounds synthesized in the plastids, which function as major antioxidants of the plant cells and are essential in the human diet. Both the intermediates and final products of the tocopherol biosynthetic pathway must cross plastid membranes to reach their sites of action. So far, no protein with tocopherol binding activity has been reported in plants.

Cellulose Synthase Stoichiometry in Aspen Differs from Arabidopsis and Norway Spruce.

Cellulose is synthesized at the plasma membrane by cellulose synthase complexes (CSCs) containing cellulose synthases (CESAs). Genetic analysis and CESA isoform quantification indicate that cellulose in the secondary cell walls of Arabidopsis () is synthesized by isoforms CESA4, CESA7, and CESA8 in equimolar amounts. Here, we used quantitative proteomics to investigate whether the CSC model based on Arabidopsis secondary cell wall CESA stoichiometry can be applied to the angiosperm tree aspen () and the gymnosperm tree Norway spruce ().

Allelic differences in a vacuolar invertase affect Arabidopsis growth at early plant development.

Improving carbon fixation in order to enhance crop yield is a major goal in plant sciences. By quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping, it has been demonstrated that a vacuolar invertase (vac-Inv) plays a key role in determining the radical length in Arabidopsis. In this model, variation in vac-Inv activity was detected in a near isogenic line (NIL) population derived from a cross between two divergent accessions: Landsberg erecta (Ler) and Cape Verde Island (CVI), with the CVI allele conferring both higher Inv activity and longer radicles.

ASR1 transcription factor and its role in metabolism.

Asr1 (ABA, stress, ripening) is a plant gene widely distributed in many species which was discovered by differential induction levels in tomato plants subjected to drought stress conditions. ASR1 also regulates the expression of a hexose transporter in grape and is involved in sugar and amino acid accumulation in some species like maize and potato. The control that ASR1 exerts on hexose transport is interesting from a biotechnological perspective because both sugar partitioning and content in specific organs affect the yield and the quality of many agronomically important crops.

Tomato ABSCISIC ACID STRESS RIPENING (ASR) gene family revisited.

Tomato ABSCISIC ACID RIPENING 1 (ASR1) was the first cloned plant ASR gene. ASR orthologs were then cloned from a large number of monocot, dicot and gymnosperm plants, where they are mostly involved in response to abiotic (drought and salinity) stress and fruit ripening. The tomato genome encodes five ASR genes: ASR1, 2, 3 and 5 encode low-molecular-weight proteins (ca.

Natural occurring epialleles determine vitamin E accumulation in tomato fruits.

Vitamin E (VTE) content is a low heritability nutritional trait for which the genetic determinants are poorly understood. Here, we focus on a previously detected major tomato VTE quantitative trait loci (QTL; mQTL(9-2-6)) and identify the causal gene as one encoding a 2-methyl-6-phytylquinol methyltransferase (namely VTE3(1)) that catalyses one of the final steps in the biosynthesis of γ- and α-tocopherols, which are the main forms of VTE. By reverse genetic approaches, expression analyses, siRNA profiling and DNA methylation assays, we demonstrate that mQTL(9-2-6) is an expression QTL associated with differential methylation of a SINE retrotransposon located in the promoter region of VTE3(1).

ASR1 mediates glucose-hormone cross talk by affecting sugar trafficking in tobacco plants.

Asr (for ABA, stress, ripening) genes are exclusively found in the genomes of higher plants, and the encoded proteins have been found localized both to the nucleus and cytoplasm. However, before the mechanisms underlying the activity of ASR proteins can be determined, the role of these proteins in planta should be deciphered. Results from this study suggest that ASR is positioned within the signaling cascade of interactions among glucose, abscisic acid, and gibberellins.