Legume plants enter into symbiotic relationships with soil bacteria in order to obtain nitrogen to sustain plant growth. The nodulation associated with this is regulated in response to both internal developmental signals via the autoregulation of nodulation (AON) and by environmental signals, such as the availability of soil nitrogen. Reid et al. focus on the conservation [...]

Self-incompatibility (SI) is generally controlled by the S-locus, and comprises allelic pollen and pistil S-determinants. Poulter et al. review and discuss our current understanding of the cytoskeletal alterations induced in incompatible pollen during SI and their relationship with programmed cell death in Papaver rhoeas, focussing on data relating to the formation of F-actin punctate foci. Analysis [...]

  In my research, I always seem to be somewhere near the extremes of having too much data or not having enough data to address the questions I am asking. Even in experimental design, there seems to be a similar dichotomy: how to find the answer when you can only realistically use eight microscope slide [...]

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 [...]