Bethany Eldridge and Tom Denbigh are co-first authors on a recent paper in Communications Biology entitled ‘Micro-scale interactions between Arabidopsis root hairs and soil particles influence soil erosion‘. We discuss the innovative experimental procedures that they designed to measure the interaction of root hairs with their environment!
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GARNet conducted a short survey to assess community-interest in an UK-focused webinar series that will highlights the excellence in UK plant science. Approximately 100 respondants were supportive of the idea so we are kicking off the GARNet-Presents Webinar series on May 5th 2020.
This series owes a huge debt of thanks to the widely popular Plantae Presents series that has shown that there is a community-need for events of this type.
We will run this series through the GoToWebinar software, which allows simple presentation with the ability for virtual attendees to ask questions in a chat box. These questions will be moderated by the webinar chairperson and some will be asked to the speakers. Each week two speakers will present their research over 30minute sessions.
Please visit the GARNet-Presents home page. Webinars will be freely available on the home page soon after the event. Although closed captioning/subtitles are not available for live webinars after the event a transcription will be available with the recording.
The inaugural event on Tuesday May 5th 2020 at 3pm BST features Professor Jonathan Jones from the Sainsbury Lab, Norwich and Dr Yoselin Benitez-Alfonso from the University of Leeds.
Sign up here ->
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7873299707710492176
The second event on Tuesday May 19th 2020 at 3pm BST features Dr Daniel Gibbs from the University of Birmingham and Dr Emily Breeze from the University of Warwick
Sign up here ->
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5162167916512293134
We are looking for Webinar speakers later in the GARNet-Presents series. These will take place on Tuesday 3pm BST every two weeks until July 14th 2020 and then start up again on September 1st 2020.
These are 20minute talks with 5-10 minutes for questions. We run GARNet-Presents through GoToWebinar and will require a decent Wifi connection and a webcam. You’d share your screen for everyone to view as you talk. If you’d be willing to then I’d also like to share the slides you will present with all attendees. Of course this would be minus anything unpublished that you don’t want to share.
If you are interested in presented then please email Geraint Parry with a statement of interest and a talk title. We are hoping to recruit plant scientists of any career stage or research interest.
Chris Morgan who works at the John Innes Centre discusses a recent PNAS paper entitled ‘Derived alleles of two axis proteins affect meiotic traits in autotetraploid Arabidopsis arenosa‘. We discuss the technical challenges of this research as well as the difficulties working from home (or not) with a super-resolution microscope!
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The use of automatic image analysis in the biological sciences has increased significantly in recent years, especially with automated image capture and the rise of phenotyping.
This online course will help improve your understanding of image analysis methods, and improve your practical skills and ability to apply the techniques to your images.
You will explore the process of image acquisition, through to segmenting regions, counting objects and tracking movement. Importantly, we’ll also try to highlight what to watch out for when using different image analysis approaches.
This is led by a team at the University of Nottingham that includes Tony Pridmore, Andrew French, Amy Lowe and Mike Pound. This team has worked a great deal with plant scientists and are global leader in the automated and AI approaches to tackle the challenges of plant phenotyping.
This training course is FREE and begins on May 11th.
More information can be found on this URL:
This Easter edition of the GARNet Research Roundup begins with research from Aberystwyth University that has developed a system for studying self-incompatability in self-compatible Arabidopsis. Next is an outstanding community-focussed study led from the John Innes Centre that outlines the development of new resources that better enable discovery-led science to be conducted within hexaploid wheat.
Third is a study led by the Dodd group at the JIC that links the circadian clock to water-use efficiency. The fourth paper is from the Edwards group at Bristol investigates the effect of higher temperatures on meiotic recombination in wheat. The fifth paper is from Rothamsted Research and introduces novel molecular tools that will be useful in future studies of the economically important weed Blackgrass.
The next paper includes co-authors from the Sainsbury lab in Norwich and looks at the role of carbonic anhydrases in plant immunity at higher levels of CO2. The seventh paper looks at the integration of light signaling and the circadian clock and includes Paul Devlin from RHUL as a co-author. The penultimate paper includes Gareth Jenkins from Glasgow as a co-author and looks at the perception of different wavelengths of UV light by the photoreceptor UVR8. The final paper includes Marko Hyvönen from Cambridge as a co-author and investigates the organisation of the RALF gene family in strawberry.
Wang L, Triviño M, Lin Z, Carli J, Eaves DJ, Van Damme D, Nowack MK, Franklin-Tong VE, Bosch M (2020) New opportunities and insights into Papaver self-incompatibility by imaging engineered Arabidopsis pollen. J Exp Bot. doi: 10.1093/jxb/eraa092 Open Access
Ludi Wang is first author on this work led from Maurice Bosch’s lab at Aberystwyth University. They have transferred their work on self-incompatability (SI) in Papaver into Arabidopsis, so as to take advantage of its excellent genetic resources. They show that the SI response can be recapitulated in Arabidopsis, even though it is self-compatible. This research has allowed them to discover new roles for clathrin-mediated endocytosis, the actin cytoskeleton and calcium signaling during SI.
Ludi and Maurice discuss this work on the GARNet Community podcast.
Adamski NM, Borrill P, Brinton J, Harrington SA, Marchal C, Bentley AR, Bovill WD, Cattivelli L, Cockram J, Contreras-Moreira B, Ford B, Ghosh S, Harwood W, Hassani-Pak K, Hayta S, Hickey LT, Kanyuka K, King J, Maccaferrri M, Naamati G, Pozniak CJ, Ramirez-Gonzalez RH, Sansaloni C, Trevaskis B, Wingen LU, Wulff BB, Uauy C (2020) A roadmap for gene functional characterisation in crops with large genomes: Lessons from polyploid wheat. Elife. doi: 10.7554/eLife.55646 Open Access
This research is led from the Uauy lab at the John Innes Centre by Nikolai Adamski, Phillippa Borrill (now at Birmingham), Jemima Brinton, Sophie Harrington and Clemence Marchal. This team worked with collaborators based around the UK, in Australia, Canada and Mexico and they outline the resources that they have developed that will promote the use of wheat as an experimental organism for discovery-led research.
Simon NM, Graham CA, Comben NE, Hetherington AM, Dodd AN (2020) The circadian clock influences the long-term water use efficiency of Arabidopsis. Plant Physiol. doi: 10.1104/pp.20.00030 Open Access
This research is led by Noriane Simon who worked with Anthony Dodd at the University of Bristol and the John Innes Centre. They showed that misregulation of components that control the circadian oscillator causes alterations in water-use efficiency in Arabidopsis plants. This response is linked to the control of transpiration via circadian control of guard cell physiology.
Coulton A, Burridge AJ, Edwards KJ (2020) Examining the Effects of Temperature on Recombination in Wheat. Front Plant Sci. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.00230 Open Access
Alexander Coulton is lead author on this study from the University of Bristol that has looked at how temperature changes alter the landscape of meiotic recombination in wheat. Despite showing that high temperature induces movement of recombination events toward centromeres, the overall effect is limited due to the tight linkages of many wheat genes.
Mellado-Sánchez M, McDiarmid F, Cardoso V, Kanyuka K, MacGregor DR (2020) Virus-mediated transient expression techniques enable gene function studies in black-grass. Plant Physiol. doi: 10.1104/pp.20.00205 Open Access
This Letter to the editor of Plant Physiology is led by Macarena Mellado-Sánchez, who works with Dana MacGregor at Rothamsted Research. They demonstrate the first usage of Virus-mediated gene silencing (VIGS) and Virus-mediated protein overexpression (VOX) in Blackgrass, which is a significant crop weed. They use these techniques in genetic gain and loss of function studies that result in changes in herbicide resistance in transformed blackgrass. Hopefully this work can be a prelude to future research in this potentially important experimental system for understanding how weeds effect crop yields.
Zhou Y, Vroegop-Vos IA, Van Dijken AJH, Van der Does D, Zipfel C, Pieterse CMJ, Van Wees SCM (2020) Carbonic anhydrases CA1 and CA4 function in atmospheric CO(2)-modulated disease resistance. Planta. doi: 10.1007/s00425-020-03370-w
Yeling Zhou is first author on this Dutch-led research that includes Dieuwertje Van der Does and Cyril Zipfel from the Sainsbury lab in Norwich. They show that the Carbonic anhydrases CA1 and CA4 play a role in plant immunity under higher levels of atmospheric CO2. This indicates that these genes might be future targets for improving plant disease resistance.
Liu Y, Ma M, Li G, Yuan L, Xie Y, Wei H, Ma X, Li Q, Devlin PF, Xu X, Wang H (2020) Transcription Factors FHY3 and FAR1 Regulate Light-induced CIRCADIAN CLOCK ASSOCIATED1 Gene Expression in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell. doi: 10.1105/tpc.19.00981
Paul Devlin from RHUL is a co-author on this Chinese-study led by Yang Liu. They show that FAR-RED ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL3 (FHY3) and its paralogue FAR-RED IMPAIRED RESPONSE1 (FAR1) are essential for light induction of CCA1, which contracts to the repressive effect of PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTOR 5 (PIF5). They introduce an integrated photosensory signaling pathway that brings together light signalling with control of the circadian clock.
Rai N, O’Hara A, Farkas D, Safronov O, Ratanasopa K, Wang F, Lindfors AV, Jenkins GI, Lehto T, Salojärvi J, Brosché M, Strid Å, Aphalo PJ, Morales LO. (2020) The photoreceptor UVR8 mediates the perception of both UV-B and UV-A wavelengths up to 350 nm of sunlight with responsivity moderated by cryptochromes. Plant Cell Environ. doi: 10.1111/pce.13752 Open Access
Neha Rai is first author on this Finnish-led study that includes Gareth Jenkins from the University of Glasgow as a co-author. They investigated the response of the photoreceptors UV RESISTANCE LOCUS 8 (UVR8) and CRYPTOCHROMES 1 and 2 (CRYs) to UV wavelengths included in sunlight. They show that the wavelength of 350 nm is an important cut-off for the perception of UV-B and UV-A by these different photoreceptors.
Negrini F, O’Grady K, Hyvönen M, Folta KM, Baraldi E (2020) Genomic structure and transcript analysis of the Rapid Alkalinization Factor (RALF) gene family during host-pathogen crosstalk in Fragaria vesca and Fragaria x ananassa strawberry. PLoS One. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0226448 Open Access
Marko Hyvönen working at the University of Cambridge is a co-author on this Italian-US collaboration led by Francesca Negrini. This work describes the genomic organisation of the family of the Rapid Alkalinization Factors (RALFs) in octoploid strawberry. In addition they describe the upregulation of one family member, FanRALF3-1, during fungal infection. This will lead to future research aimed at defining the precise molecular relationship between FanRALF3-1 expression and the immune response in strawberry.
Ludi Wang and Maurice Bosch work at Aberystwyth University and talk to the GARNet Community podcast about a recent paper in JXBot entitled ‘New opportunities and insights into Papaver self-incompatibility by imaging engineered Arabidopsis pollen‘. We discuss the challenges of live imaging Arabidopsis pollen tubes growing in liquid media!!
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