Climate and ecosystem changes in the Northeast Pacific decoupled primary and export productivity and organic carbon burial during climate warming of the last deglaciation. These findings challenge and clarify the meaning of paleoceanographic proxies of productivity and provide key constraints for modeling of the ocean’s biological pump as a potential carbon feedback mechanism associated with large-scale climate change. To our knowledge, this is the first clear demonstration that primary productivity, export productivity, and carbon burial are significantly decoupled under scenarios of large-scale climate change.

Researchers from University of Adelaide and Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences conducted a study which aims to improve soybean crop. They identified the gene necessary to enhance salt tolerance in soybean. By examining the gene sequences in different soybean varieties, they were able to identify and closely analyze GmSALT3. GmSALT3 is a salt tolerance gene in chromosome 3.

Drought stress induces the accumulation of the plant stress hormone abscisic acid (ABA). ABA then quickly activates the protein kinase OST1/SnRK2.6 to phosphorylate a number of proteins in guard cells, resulting in stomatal closure to reduce transpirational water loss. How SnRK2.6 is deactivated and how ABA signaling may be desensitized are unclear. This study found that nitric oxide (NO) resulting from ABA signaling causes S-nitrosylation of SnRK2.6 at a cysteine residue close to the kinase catalytic site, which blocks the kinase activity.

Banana is a climacteric fruit and has an ethylene dependent ripening. This makes postharvest ripening fast, shortening its postharvest life and resulting in huge losses. To better understand the mechanism of ripening, Mehar H. Asif and Prabodh K. Trivedi from the National Botanical Research Institute, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research in India,

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a major staple crop in Africa, Asia, and South America, and its starchy roots provide nourishment for 800 million people worldwide. Although native to South America, cassava was brought to Africa 400–500 years ago and is now widely cultivated across sub-Saharan Africa, but it is subject to biotic and abiotic stresses.

Obesity and associated metabolic disorders (e.g., cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes) are major public health concerns. These disorders result, in part, from hormonal dysregulation, particularly of glucocorticoids (GCs; central regulators of metabolism and adipogenesis). The specific mechanisms by which GCs modulate these processes remain largely unknown

Nucleotide sugars are donor substrates for the formation of glycan modifications, which are important for the function of many macromolecules such as proteins and lipids. Although most of the glycosylation reactions occur in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and Golgi of eukaryotic cells, nucleotide sugar activation occurs in the cytosol and specific transporters must carry these molecules across the membrane. We identified REPRESSOR OF CYTOKININ DEFICIENCY 1 (ROCK1) as an ER-localized transporter of UDP-GlcNAc and UDP-GalNAc in plants. In contrast to animals, nothing is known about the function of the two respective sugar residues in the plant ER

Despite its importance, studies on the effect of transgenes in soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) and the associated use of herbicides on biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) are relatively few. The transgenic soybean Cultivance CV127 contains the ahas gene, which confers resistance to imidazolinone herbicides. Mariangela Hungria of Embrapa Soja in Brazil, led a team of researchers in assessing the effects of the ahas transgene and of imidazolinone herbicide on BNF parameters and soybean yield.

The vacuole is the most prominent compartment in plant cells and is important for ion and protein storage. In our effort to search for key regulators in the plant vacuole sorting pathway, ribosomal large subunit 4 (rpl4d) was identified as a translational mutant defective in both vacuole trafficking and normal development. Polysome profiling of the rpl4d mutant showed reduction in polysome-bound mRNA compared with wild-type, but no significant change in the general mRNA distribution pattern.

The terpenes are the largest class of plant natural products. This major class of compounds represents tremendous chemical diversity of which only a relatively small fraction has so far been accessed and used by industry. The primary drivers of terpene diversification are terpenoid synthases and cytochromes P450, which synthesize and modify terpene scaffolds.