The presence and activity of small RNA pathways in plant gametophytes remains largely unexplored – which is unexpected in view of the pivotal role of small RNAs in animal germline development.

The hybrid sunflower Helianthus anomalus is endemic to desert sand dunes, which have lower nutrient availability than the habitats of its parental species. Brouillette and Donovan use a cDNA microarray to compare the gene expression of H. anomalus to that of its parents under contrasting nutrient treatments, and identify five candidate genes for its ecological speciation. One [...]

AM fungi and poplar growth on contaminated soil Plant tolerance to stress can be improved by the presence of mycorrhiza. Cicatelli et al. study the response of poplar, Populus alba, with or without pre-inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) to soil contaminated with copper and Zn and find that on polluted soli the AMF restore [...]

Microarray-analysis for components of salinity-stress tolerance Thiourea has been demonstrated to impart salinity-stress tolerance to seedlings of mustard, Brassica juncea. Srivastava et al.  perform a genome-wide transcriptome analysis of seeds treated with either salinity, or salinity plus thiourea. They identify 33 genes showing differential expression between the treatments, belonging to different signalling (ABA and other [...]