Recent press releases

Using the crucifer Cardamine hirsuta researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIPZ) uncovered how enhancer evolution contributed to differences in leaf shape within this plant family. [more]

A collaborative effort by the Formosa-Jordan lab from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany, the Fox lab from Duke University, USA, and the Roeder lab from Cornell University, USA, developed a new computational pipeline that enables the high-throughput quantification of ploidy, i.e., the copy number of chromosomes, across tissues from microscopy images. The study is now published in Cell Reports Methods. [more]

The European Union has reached a provisional agreement on a new regulatory framework for plants developed using new genomic techniques (NGTs). The reform modernises rules that have remained unchanged since 2001 and acknowledges the scientific progress made in precision breeding methods such as CRISPR/Cas. [more]

Plants start to flower in response to environmental signals such as daylength. This process involves a protein signal, florigen, that is made in the leaves and induces floral development at the shoot tip. Researchers in the groups of George Coupland at the Max-Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne and their collaborators have elegantly shed new light on the existing model for how florigen and two other proteins interact at the shoot apex to form the florigen activation complex (FAC), which is responsible for activating the genes required for flower formation. The findings, published in Nature, show that after movement of florigen into the shoot tip, formation of the FAC occurs on DNA in a distinct sequence of events. Also, the authors show that as well as inducing flowering, florigen has later independent functions during the formation of flowers. [more]

Leaf epidermal cells have very different sizes and ploidy levels (the number of chromosome sets), but what actually controls their size and how these cells become organized within the tissue remains unclear. A collaborative and interdisciplinary study involving imaging, quantitative analyses, and modeling has been published in PLOS Biology by the groups of Pau Formosa-Jordan at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and Adrienne Roeder at Cornell University, which finally brings the pieces together.
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In a recent Nature Genetics publication, an international team led by Dr. Thomas Hartwig and Dr. Julia Engelhorn (Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne; Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf) introduces a scalable method to map genomic regulatory regions—often referred to as “switches” for their role in controlling the timing and strength of gene expression. Until now, most research has focused on genes themselves, but this study demonstrates that many crucial trait differences originate from variation in these regulatory switches, which have long been notoriously difficult to study on a large scale. [more]

How centromeres enable a special form of reproduction [more]

Tonni Grube Andersen together with CEPLAS member Stanislav Kopriva (UoC) identifed several plant growth promoting volatiles. The study is now published in Plant communications. [more]

A study from the group of Hirofumi Nagakami at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research has shown how a versatile protein family may have helped plants colonize land. We sat down with Dr. Nagakami to learn more about this study and the work of his group in general. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Researchers from LMU and the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research have reconstructed the genomes of ten historic potato cultivars and show that they already cover 85 percent of the total variability of modern European potatoes. [more]

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research have developed an innovative system – called MetaFlowTrain – that allows the study of metabolic exchange and interactions within microbial communities under different environmental conditions. The study is now published in Nature Communications.
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Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, the University of Cologne, and the University of Copenhagen have uncovered a hidden talent of the Casparian strip—a root structure best known for acting like a plant’s security guard. It turns out this natural barrier also plays a key role in making sure legumes get the right amount of nitrogen from their bacterial partners. Their findings, now published in Science, could help researchers better understand how plants and microbes negotiate their underground business deals.
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A study led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne has shown that the ability to suppress plant immune responses is shared among many of the bacteria that live on healthy plant roots. This trait stabilizes bacterial communities, known as the root microbiota, against perturbations through the plant immune system [more]

Scientists have decoded the structure of a barley protein that provides resistance against a devastating fungal disease. Such structures could inform efforts to protect crops from plant pathogens.
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In a new study published in Nature, researchers working in the groups of Jijie Chai (Westlake University in Hangzhou, China) and Jane Parker (MPIPZ in Cologne, Germany) describe how Arabidopsis plants exert fine-control of a major immune signalling machinery rapid but restricted host cell death after pathogen recognition. [more]

MPIPZ research groups collaborate to produce a fully phased, chromosome-scale genome assembly of Cardamine chenopodiifolia [more]

A collaboration between US and German researchers has revealed the surprising identity of a plant factor responsible for susceptibility to fungal disease in the USA’s top barley-growing region. Their study is published in the journal New Phytologist.
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Researchers of the MPIPZ have developed a technique that enables the breeding of genetically identical hybrid plants [more]

Researchers describe the unusual trait of amphicarpy, where two types of fruit develop on the same plant: one above- and the other below-ground. [more]

As plants initiate flowering, the shoot tip enlarges and undergoes genetic reprogramming. However, how these changes in shoot-tip shape are co-regulated with the floral transition is unknown. In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers from the group of George Coupland at the Max-Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany, show that the reciprocal repression of two genes at the plant apex synchronises changes in meristem shape with the floral transition in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.
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Researchers discover a genetic switch in plants that can turn simple spoon-shaped leaves into complex leaves with leaflets [more]

Publication in Nature describes novel regulatory mechanism that keeps plant immune responses in check. [more]

A collaborative study between researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology has shown how a single metabolite can render bacteria toxic to plants under high salt conditions. Their findings may have important implications for agriculture and plant health in changing climates.
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Researchers breed tomato plants that contain the complete genetic material of both parent plants [more]

A research team led by Raphaël Mercier and Korbinian Schneeberger from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne investigated the great genome diversity of the most popular research model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. A valuable toolbox to empower future genetic research. The study is now published in Nature Genetics.
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A research team led by Paul Schulze-Lefert developed a modular toolkit for tracking bacterial strains colonising plant tissue in competition with other microbiome members. The study is now published in Nature Microbiology.

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A new study published in the journal Nature shows that the same phenomenon that occurs when we try to mix oil and water – phase separation – plays an important role in the immune system of plants.
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Hairy bittercress has explosive fruit that fire seeds in all directions. MPI researchers discover how these seed pods power their own explosion. [more]

A study, led by André Marques, identified chromosome pairing as key in the control for the distribution of genetic material. The findings will provide further insights towards new approaches in plant breeding. [more]

Leaf heteroblasty is the fascinating natural phenomenon by which plants produce different leaves as they grow and mature. This requires a complex interplay between cellular growth and time, and allows a single plant to manifest a diverse range of leaf shapes and sizes over its lifespan. In a recent paper in the journal Current Biology, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne have now shed light on how this intricate process occurs during leaf development of the small mustard plant Arabidopsis thaliana. By studying the development of juvenile and adult leaves, they identified key differences in their cellular growth patterns, which they found were controlled by a SPL9-CYCD3 transcriptional module. These findings provide us with a deeper understanding of how the passing of time is encoded into organ growth and morphogenesis, and demonstrate the intricate tempo of plant growth and development. [more]