Frost fighters: The discovery of a tripartite molecular module that confers cold stress tolerance in apple
Related Concept Videos
Every organism has an optimum temperature range within which healthy growth and physiological functioning can occur. At the ends of this range, there will be a minimum and maximum temperature that interrupt biological processes.
When the environmental dynamics fall out of the optimal limit for a given species, changes in metabolism and functioning occur – and this is defined as stress. Plants respond to stress by initiating changes in gene expression - leading to adjustments in plant...
From Water to Land
Kingdom Plantae first appeared about 410 million years ago as green algae transitioned from water to land. This land was a relatively uncolonized environment with ample resources. Terrestrial environments also offered more light and carbon dioxide, required by plants to grow and survive.
However, the stark differences between land and sea posed a formidable challenge to early colonizing species prompting many new adaptations that have resulted in the wide variety of plant...
Sporulation is a complex developmental process that allows certain Gram-positive bacteria, such as Bacillus subtilis and Clostridium species, to survive extreme environmental conditions. This process is tightly regulated by a series of signaling cascades and transcriptional controls, ensuring the formation of a highly resistant endospore.Sporulation is triggered by unfavorable conditions, such as nutrient depletion, and is governed by a phosphorelay system. One of the sensor kinases, such as...
During photosynthesis, plants acquire the necessary carbon dioxide and release the produced oxygen back into the atmosphere. Openings in the epidermis of plant leaves is the site of this exchange of gasses. A single opening is called a stoma—derived from the Greek word for “mouth.” Stomata open and close in response to a variety of environmental cues.
Each stoma is flanked by two specialized guard cells that create an opening when these cells take up water. The transport of...
Fruits form from a mature flower ovary. As seeds develop from the ovules contained within, the ovary wall undergoes a series of complex changes to form fruit. In some fruits, such as soybeans, the ovary wall dries; in other fruits, such as grapes, it remains fleshy. In some cases, organs other than the ovary contribute to fruit formation; such fruits are called accessory fruits.
Fruits can be classified based on the number of flowers and the structure of the carpels involved in their...
Bacteria have global regulatory systems that control several types of stress mechanisms. These include Pho regulon and the heat shock response, which are essential systems for environmental adaptation, such as nutrient limitation and proteotoxic stress. The Pho regulon and the heat shock response exemplify bacterial resilience, enabling rapid adaptation to fluctuating environmental conditions.Pho RegulonBacteria require phosphorus for essential cellular processes, including nucleic acid...

