ARIBIDOPSIS

James Cameron's sci-fi classic Avatar was a long-waited one for movie fans and for me. The first time I watched it was a sophomore of Biochemistry major. On a personal note, this is one of the few movies I watched several times with my dad on TV. Not exactly from the beginning to end  every time, but from a various starting point to the end. Fast forwarded a decade or slightly more than that, I became a plant biologist in the meantime and re-watching the movie brings completely different perspective.  Pandorian Botany The plot starts with the human race to obtain the mineral Unobtanium , which is available in the Pandora . Humans are inclined to have this mineral to solve the energy crisis of earth. But, the native Navi is the obstacle on their way. To conquer the Pandora and their mineral, humans made a base camp to observe them and even created a hybrid combining human and Navi's DNA.  Jake and Neytiri in the Pandorian forest. Movie: Avatar That's the plot. But, watchi...

Bird's-Eye View of Alternative Splicing   A single gene may produce multiple end products or proteins. The process, responsible for creating multiple proteins, is known as Alternative Splicing. If you imagine the structure of a gene as the organization of two types of boxes (exon and intron) arranges alternatively, the single gene product depicts the scenario of taking out "intron boxes" and put "exon boxes" in order. What if when one "exon box" is missed or one "intron box" remained? That doesn't sound like expected output. It suggests the ability of the system to splice out boxes in an alternative manner.  Alternative Splicing in Arabidopsis Alternative splicing event usually occurs in 4 ways: exon skipping/inclusion, alternative 3' splice region, alternative 5' splice region and intron retention. Alternative splicing is a common event in every living system. It provides an amazing opportunity to uncover which type o...

Twins: Biological facts Not all of us are lucky enough to have twins! the point of mentioning it is that twin formation is not a regular event. In general, twins are formed in human embryos in two possible ways. Either, a single fertilized egg splits into two or separate eggs are fertilized two separate sperms.  How plants maintain selectivity The fundamental processes of life in plant system are analogous to the human system. In most plants, from the single embryo, they produce single seedling or plant.  Usually, female germline starts with 1 MMC ( m egaspore m other c ell) per ovule and becomes 4 megaspores through the process of meiosis. Out of these 4, only one survives to produce FM ( f unctional m egaspore) and other 3 megaspores undergo degeneration process. The only FM forms the embryo sac.  This is how plant selectively let only one megaspore survive and for embryo sac. (Illustration is provided at the end of article).  Does plant f...

It's almost the end of another amazing year. Undoubtedly, we came across amazing plant science stories all the year round. Like all other researchers, I regularly follow plant-specific journals (The Plant Cell, Plant Physiology, Nature Plants, The Plant Journal, Journal of Experimental Botany, Molecular Plant, Plant, Cell & Environment, Plant, Cell & Physiology, Frontiers in Plant Science, Plant Direct and so on). Apart from that Cell, Science, Nature, PNAS, Nature Communication and other renowned journals cover plant science stories. At the end of this 2017, I've covered few great stories from Science in this post.  Plant-soil feedback and the maintenance of diversity in Mediterranean-climate shrublands Soil biota influence plant performance through plant-soil feedback, but it was unclear whether the strength of such feedback depends on plant traits and whether plant-soil feedback drives local plant diversity. They grew 16 co-occurring plant species with...

Recently "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" is released. Definitely, a great news for Star Wars' fan. I'm going to exploit this opportunity from a plant biologist point and can't resist that. Although I'm a huge fan of BB-8, who can move in any direction with enormous flexibility, this post is about R2D2. From Star Wars series, R2D2 is the robot character and appeared in most of the episodes so far. It appears for a shorter time in The Last Jedi also. It's a very good friend of Luke Skywalker.  R2D2 from plant biology perspective in an auxin-responsive marker. It stands for the Ratiometric version of 2 D2’s. Th simplest way to explain auxin signaling pathway is that ARF (Auxin Responsive Factor) is usually bound to repressor AUX/IAA protein in absence of auxin. Upon the arrival and binding of auxin, ARF becomes free to execute the down-stream event and AUX/IAA is subjected to degradation via ubiquitination. AUX/IAA has 5 domains and here D2 indicates the do...

It's almost the end of another amazing year. Undoubtedly, we came across amazing plant science stories all the year round. Like all other researchers, I regularly follow plant-specific journals (The Plant Cell, Plant Physiology, Nature Plants, The Plant Journal, Journal of Experimental Botany, Molecular Plant, Plant, Cell & Environment, Plant, Cell & Physiology, Frontiers in Plant Science, Plant Direct and so on). Apart from that Cell, Science, Nature, PNAS, Nature Communication and other renowned journals cover plant science stories. At the end of this 2017, I've covered few great stories from Nature in this post.  Reducing phosphorus accumulation in rice grains with an impaired transporter in the node Phosphorus is one of the most indispensable minerals required by plants and animals. In the human body, the strength of bones and teeth is provided by mostly calcium and phosphorus. Plants, including crop plants like rice, have transporters to uptake p...