Parallel evolution of flowering time in Capsella and Arabidopsis Just out in Genetics

Independent FLC Mutations as Causes of Flowering Time Variation in Arabidopsis thaliana and Capsella rubella.

Guo YL, Todesco M, Hagmann J, Das S, Weigel D.

Capsella rubella is an inbreeding annual forb closely related to Arabidopsis thaliana, a model species

Read the rest

D. Weigel giving plenary lecture at FESPB 2012

Detlef Weigel is delivering today, August 1, a plenary lecture entitled “Arabidopsis thaliana as a model system for the study of evolutionary questions”, at the joint EPSO-FESPB Plant Biology 2012 meeting in Freiburg.

This is what he will discuss:

We … Read the rest

New department members: C. Wang, E. Lim, S. Collani

We were joined in July by three new scientists Physicist Congmao Wang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University joined the Weigel group, and plant biologist Silvio Collani from the University of Padua joined the Schmid group. In addition, informatician Euncheon Lim … Read the rest

A nice post

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem.

Nulla consequat massa

Read the rest

eLife website online (Deputy Editor: Detlef Weigel)

eLife is a new high-level journal in the life sciences, supported by the Max Planck Society, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Wellcome Trust.

eLife is a researcher-driven initiative for the very best in science and science communication. eLife promotes … Read the rest

No genome needed: synteny- based precision mapping

Mapping-by-sequencing, “SHOREmapping”, is greatly accelerating the identification of causal mutations.

Current whole-genome or transcriptome assemblies from next-generation sequencing data of non-model organisms, however, do not produce chromosome-length scaffolds. We have therefore developed a method that exploits synteny with a related … Read the rest

MiRNA duplex structure controls secondary siRNA formation

Plant secondary siRNA production determined by microRNA-duplex structure.

Out in PNAS by Manavella and colleagues: Plant secondary siRNA production determined by microRNA-duplex structure. In plants, miRNA-mediated cleavage of a target triggers in some cases the production of secondary small interfering … Read the rest

PNAS paper on evolution of epigenetic variants published by Hollister, Smith, Guo, Ott, Weigel & Gaut.

Just out in PNAS: Transposable elements and small RNAs contribute to gene expression divergence between Arabidopsis thaliana and Arabidopsis lyrata, by Hollister, Smith, Guo, Ott, Weigel & Gaut.… Read the rest

New gene silencing method published: MIGS

Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) and hairpin RNA interference (hpRNAi), both of which rely on small interfering RNAs, together with artificial microRNAs (amiRNA), are amongst the most popular methods for reduction of gene activity in plants.

However, all three approaches have … Read the rest