An international group of European and US scientists led by the Centre for Plant Integrative Biology at The University of Nottingham have uncovered a fascinating new insight into the unseen side of plant biology — the root.
Although less visible than shoots, leaves and flowers, plant roots are critical to our lives. They provide the crops we eat with water, nutrients, a firm anchor and a place to store food. Roots are complex branching organs and show a wide variation in the way they grow through the soil to exploit the available resources.
The way that new lateral roots are formed and grow is key to this process. Lateral roots originate deep within the parent root and must emerge through intervening layers of tissues before entering the soil. Despite its importance to the integrity and architecture of the root system, little is known about the regulation of lateral root emergence. This question has fascinated, yet frustrated, scientists since the nineteenth century.
A paper appearing in Nature Cell Biology reveals for the very first time how lateral root emergence is achieved. It reports that new lateral roots reprogramme the cells that overlay them, causing them to separate and enabling the new root to emerge. In short, the scientists have discovered how new roots open the door to the world outside.
Professor Malcolm Bennett, Biology Director for the Centre for Plant Integrative Biology and Head of Division of Plant and Crop Sciences, said: ”In addition to providing new biological insight into lateral root emergence, we have a identified a large number of genes that control this process. This is really important because this may enable us to breed crops with improved root architecture in the future.”
The Centre for Plant Integrative Biology (CPIB) is funded by the Systems Biology joint initiative of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) which has provided £27m for six specialised centres across the UK. The Division of Plant and Crop Sciences is one of the largest communities of plant scientists in the UK. Around 160 people work in the division, which welcomes visiting scientists from all over the world, reinforcing its reputation as a world-renowned centre.
This international collaboration involved more than 20 scientists from laboratories based in Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, USA and UK.
Source: University of Nottingham
Related stories:
Novel bioreactor enhances interleukin-12 production in genetically-modified tobacco plants
Interleukin-12 is a naturally occurring protein essential for the proper functioning of the human immune system. Having either too much or too little interleukin-12 may play a role in the development of many diseases, including some cancers and auto-immune disorders like Crohn's, psoriasis, and rheumatoid arthritis. In turn, modulating interleukin-12 levels could yield new therapies for those conditions.
Scientists identify first mammal for which disease led to extinction
In 1899, an English ship stopped at Christmas Island, near Australia. Within nine years, the island's entire native rat population had gone extinct, and scientists have wondered ever since what exactly happened.
Biochemists devise method for bypassing aluminum toxicity effects in plants
(PhysOrg.com) -- Aluminum toxicity, a global agricultural problem, halts root growth in plants, severely limiting agricultural productivity for more than half of the world's arable land.
Field of the future -- ecological experiment simulates conditions in 2100
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new experiment to find out how British plant ecosystems may be affected by future changes to climate and biodiversity is underway at Imperial College London.
Researchers Get to Root of Nematode Genome
(PhysOrg.com) -- North Carolina State University scientists and colleagues have completed the genome sequence and genetic map of one of the world's most common and destructive plant parasites – Meloidogyne hapla, a microscopic, soil-dwelling worm known more commonly as the northern root-knot nematode.
Helping the medicine go down
Getting little Doug and Debbie to take a spoonful of medicine is more than just a rite of passage for frustrated parents. Children's refusal to swallow liquid medication — and their tendency to vomit it back up — is an important public health problem that means longer or more serious illness for thousands of kids each year. In the case of HIV and AIDS pediatrics, missing a dose can be a life or death scenario.
Researchers pursue grasses as Earth-friendly biofuel
(PhysOrg.com) -- At a small site on the Batavia campus of Fermilab, ecologist Julie Jastrow of Argonne National Laboratory pushes the scientific frontier in a new and exciting way: She watches the grass grow.
CO2 increase in the atmosphere augments tolerance of barley to salinity
In future, climate change will bring an increase in salty surfaces on the Earth and in the concentration of CO
2 in the atmosphere. However, this higher CO
2 has some positive effects on the physiology of barley plants and increases its tolerance to salinity. This is the conclusion of the PhD thesis of Ms Usue Pérez-López, defended at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).