Arabidopsis bactriana Belongs to Dielsiocharis (Brassicaceae)

Quantifying latitudinal clines to light responses in natural populations of Arabidopsis thaliana (Brassicaceae).

Evidence of adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana (Brassicaceae) phenotypic traits has rarely been shown. We demonstrate latitudinal clines in two A. thaliana traits: hypocotyl responses to red and far-red light. Natural populations of A. thaliana were sampled along a latitudinal gradient from southern to northern Norway. Seeds from maternal families within each population were subjected to 1 wk o...

Blurry vision belongs to history

The classical view that lens-based optical microscopes cannot resolve details separated by less than half the wavelength of light is increasingly becoming a dated one. Several microscopy techniques, used either alone or in combination, can now beat the diffraction limit by at least a factor of 2. Now, in a paper appearing in Physical Review Letters, Claus Müller and Jörg Enderlein at Georg Augu...

A latitudinal cline and response to vernalization in leaf angle and morphology in Arabidopsis thaliana (Brassicaceae).

Adaptation to latitudinal patterns of environmental variation is predicted to result in clinal variation in leaf traits. Therefore, this study tested for geographic differentiation and plastic responses to vernalization in leaf angle and leaf morphology in Arabidopsis thaliana. Twenty-one European ecotypes were grown in a common growth chamber environment. Replicates of each ecotype were expose...

The Language Belongs to the People!

D-GLYCERATE 3-KINASE, the last unknown enzyme in the photorespiratory cycle in Arabidopsis, belongs to a novel kinase family.

D-GLYCERATE 3-KINASE (GLYK; EC 2.7.1.31) catalyzes the concluding reaction of the photorespiratory C2 cycle, an indispensable ancillary metabolic pathway to the photosynthetic C3 cycle that enables land plants to grow in an oxygen-containing atmosphere. Except for GLYK, all other enzymes that contribute to the C2 cycle are known by their primary structures, and the encoding genes have been iden...