Joan Marquez-Molins

The only “higher plants” I will acknowledge are species that grow into tall trees. They are literally higher.

New OA Article: "Long-distance transport of siRNAs with functional roles in pollen development" rdcu.be/e1pxk

...These mobile small RNAs support proper pollen development, revealing that non-cell-autonomous small RNAs are crucial for successful plant reproduction.

I haven't tried, but I agree that in some species it could make sense, if a compatible transgenic rootstock can be easily generated.

Yes, definitely an ingenious approach. However, three years after being published, has any paper used this method? I fear the reported efficiency is too low...

My way to work 🇸🇪

EU einigt sich auf Lockerungen für gentechnisch veränderte Lebensmittel Für viele gentechnisch veränderte Lebensmittel soll es künftig keine Hinweispflicht mehr in Supermärkten geben. Darauf einigten sich Vertreter aus dem Europaparlament und dem Rat der EU-Länder.

Finally! The European Union allows the use of genome editing! 🌱🌾🫛🇪🇺🧬

www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/v...

🎙️🌱 ¡La presentación del proyecto PUA fue un éxito rotundo! 🚀
Hemos compartido los resultados sobre la emisión de ultrasonidos por las plantas.

Gracias a todos por participar en esta jornada de ciencia, arte y filosofía que busca redefinir nuestra concepción de las plantas.

An illustration of a cross-section of a tree trunk, highlighting the core labeled "Undead wood" and a glowing ring-shaped layer labeled "Alive part".

Trees are amazing! They build their bodies from thin air, move water with pressures that would crush a human, and grow using a system of living cables wrapped in layers of corpses. Watch our video to find out how they work, and why they might even be immortal: https://kgs.link/TreesAreDead

Version 2 is out! More comprehensive text plus new tissue- and pathway-specific analysis revealing how different viruses trigger systemic aging through diverse mechanisms.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our latest review, co-authored with @agustilab.bsky.social (@ibmcp.bsky.social), “Environmental regulation of plant vascular networks,” is now published in @cp-trendsplantsci.bsky.social! Read it here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

q.e.d Science Critical Thinking AI for constructive criticism and science evaluation

Here's the link to the system, try it! qedscience.com
@qedscience.bsky.social

Impact of post-translational modifications on cytoplasmic biomolecular condensate dynamics. The figure shows the importance of phosphorylation (a–g), ubiquitination (h, i), and other PTMs (j–m) in the dynamics of cytoplasmic biomolecular condensate formation under different biotic and abiotic stresses and for different target proteins.

The role of post-translational modifications in the dynamics of cytoplasmic biomolecular condensates in #plants

A #ResearchReview by Legoux et al. 👇

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#LatestIssue #PlantScience

Hypothesis: tissue/cell types with the least somatic mutations have the highest regenerative potential. There is a selective pressure to prevent differentiated tissues from regenerating, as to not propagate deleterious somatic mutations.

Today's the last day to apply for the Plant Cell Assistant Features Editor (AFE) program, usually postdocs or senior PhD students! It's a fantastic opportunity, a great learning experience & a lot of fun too.
If you aren't quite ready, in June 2026 Plant Physiology will open its own call for AFEs 👍

record 17,058 Marie Curie proposals in 2025 vs. 10,360 in 2024!!! the reason is pretty obvious, but wow that is a huge jump marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/news/msca-po...

We are hiring a PhD student (FPI) for the
🧬🌱Plant Epitranscriptomics Lab 🧬🌱
at IHSM La Mayora (UMA-CSIC) ‪@ihsmumacsic.bsky.social‬‬
to study the role of m6A in axillary bud dormancy

Candidates send CV and motivation letter to:
✉️laura.arribas@csic.es
📆 until Sep 30th

No shade on Ambros and Ruvkun, who did amazing work on the first miRNA. But Hamilton and Baulcombe were the ones that showed these are a whole class of molecules.

RNAcanvas: interactive drawing and exploration of nucleic acid structures Abstract. Two-dimensional drawing of nucleic acid structures, particularly RNA structures, is fundamental to the communication of nucleic acids research. H

🧪 #RNAsky

If you aren’t using RNAcanvas to draw your RNA structures and explore alternative structures, you are missing out! 56 citations in a year, with multiple ones in top journals like Nature, Science & Cell. Easy to use and packed with unique features! Try it!

academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Out of curiosity I just tried ChatGPT plagiarism checker. It falsely accused the text I checked of copying "verbatim" from citations that do not include the text it quotes. When I point this out, ChatGPT admits it was wrong. Totally useless and worse, potentially harmful.

With Joe in our lab, we discovered a new mode of how some viral sattelites can spread : A form of viral hitchhiking we termed Viral Trojan Horse ! check our paper on biorXiv : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Rather than framing it as “universities have become dependent on federal funding”, it should be framed as the US depends on universities for innovation & training.

I remember when I was doing rice pollen small RNA for my PhD work, I kept getting sRNA that are ~30-ish. We thought these were due to bad RNA integrity, so we gave up working on it. Didn't know these half tRNAs are actually important.

“Nada tiene sentido en biología excepto a la luz de la evolución”
Theodosius Dobzhansky

Nada tiene sentido actualmente en Estados Unidos excepto bajo las sombras de la ignorancia más lamentable y el negacionismo más peligroso:

Want decent competent cells with at least 10^6 CFU/mL but don't feel like stressing? Try this:

1. Grow ecoli overnight 37C in LB shaking 250rpm

2. Spin down 1mL 15sec 10,000xg

3. Decant and resuspend in 500uL of ice cold TSS buffer. Vortex to resuspend in 3 pulses 1 sec.

Done

Are you interested on the evolution and cell-type specialization of plant antiviral defences (shorturl.at/oRs9X), are you eligible for a MSCA fellowship (shorturl.at/oRFiD). Get in touch to support your application to join the MoRE Lab!, please, help us spread the word!

Despite popular myths, there is no stereotypical scientist. Each person brings their own history, personality, interests and approach to their work. I love interviews with scientists that reveal their back story and how they view their life and work 1/2 🧪

For technology papers, one way to tell if the authors actually want others to use their new techniques (rather than just a PR paper): if they have deposited their plasmids or plasmid sequences (if applicable) anywhere.

Has anyone tried combining geminivirus replicon + transposon to improve genome integration for plant transformation?

The virus replicon enables T-DNA rolling-circle amplification in the presence of replication protein. (Figure from academic.oup.com/plcell/artic...). Great papar, BTW 🧵

A PhD position is available in my group at SLU. Come join us in Sweden to work on plant regeneration and grafting, supported by Wallenberg Foundation. Details below. Please RT! #plantscijobs #plantscience