Proposal for the assessment of new methods in plant breeding

CRISPR/Cas9 is a new method for targeted genetic changes. Together with other methods, it is part of the so-called genome editing toolbox. At the moment, genome-editing is mostly discussed in the context of medical applications, ...

Hijacked cell division helped fuel rise of fungi

A new study finds that the more than 90,000 species of mushrooms, molds, yeasts and other fungi found everywhere in the soil, water and air may owe their abilities to grow, spread, and even cause disease to an opportunistic ...

The life and times of domesticated cheese-making fungi

People sure love their cheeses, but scientists have a lot to learn about the fungi responsible for a blue cheese like Roquefort or a soft Camembert. Now researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on September ...

Tiny molecules protect from the dangers of sex

Pathogenic fungi have been found to protect themselves against unwanted genetic mutations during sexual reproduction, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center. A gene-silencing pathway protects the fungal ...

Researchers can finally modify plant mitochondrial DNA

Researchers in Japan have edited plant mitochondrial DNA for the first time, which could lead to a more secure food supply. Nuclear DNA was first edited in the early 1970s, chloroplast DNA was first edited in 1988, and animal ...

Evolutionary arms race between smut fungi and maize plants

Fungi are a major cause of plant diseases and are responsible for large-scale harvest failure in crops like maize and other cereals all over the world. Together with scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum in Munich, Regine ...

Understanding how pathogenic fungi build their carbohydrate armor

In a new study published in Nature Communications, Associate Professor Tuo Wang and his research team from the Department of Chemistry at Louisiana State University revealed the molecular architecture of fungal cell walls ...

Study finds corn genome can gang up on multiple pathogens at once

In a changing climate, corn growers must be ready for anything, including new and shifting disease dynamics. Because it's impossible to predict which damaging disease will pop up in a given year, corn with resistance to ...

page 1 from 3