Plant plasmodesmata bridges form through ER-dependent incomplete cytokinesis.

Unlabelled: Diverging from conventional cell division models, plant cells undergo incomplete division to generate plasmodesmata communication bridges between daughter cells. While fundamental for plant multicellularity, the molecular events leading to bridge stabilization, as opposed to severing, remain unknown. Using electron tomography, we mapped the transition from cell plate fenestrae to plasmodesmata.

A regulatory module mediating temperature control of cell-cell communication facilitates tree bud dormancy release.

The control of cell-cell communication via plasmodesmata (PD) plays a key role in plant development. In tree buds, low-temperature conditions (LT) induce a switch in plasmodesmata from a closed to an open state, which restores cell-to-cell communication in the shoot apex and releases dormancy. Using genetic and cell-biological approaches, we have identified a previously uncharacterized transcription factor, Low-temperature-Induced MADS-box 1 (LIM1), as an LT-induced, direct upstream activator of the gibberellic acid (GA) pathway.

Toward uncovering an operating system in plant organs.

Molecular motifs can explain information processing within single cells, while how assemblies of cells collectively achieve this remains less well understood. Plant fitness and survival depend upon robust and accurate decision-making in their decentralised multicellular organ systems. Mobile agents, including hormones, metabolites, and RNAs, have a central role in coordinating multicellular collective decision-making, yet mechanisms describing how cell-cell communication scales to organ-level transitions is poorly understood.

The TCP transcription factor HvTB2 heterodimerizes with VRS5 and controls spike architecture in barley.

Understanding the molecular network, including protein-protein interactions, of VRS5 provide new routes towards the identification of other key regulators of plant architecture in barley. The TCP transcriptional regulator TEOSINTE BRANCHED 1 (TB1) is a key regulator of plant architecture. In barley, an important cereal crop, HvTB1 (also referred to as VULGARE SIX-ROWED spike (VRS) 5), inhibits the outgrowth of side shoots, or tillers, and grains.

FT/TFL1: Calibrating Plant Architecture.

There is a very large diversity in plant architecture in nature. Over the past few years, novel theoretical concepts and analytical methods have emerged as powerful tools to understand important aspects of plant architecture. Plant architecture depends on the relative arrangement of three types of organs: leaves, shoots, and flowers.