Noisy gene atlas to help reveal how plants ‘hedge their bets’ in race for survival

As parents of identical twins will tell you, they are never actually identical, even though they have the same genes. This is also true in the plant world. Now, new research by Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU) is helping to explain why ‘twin’ plants, with identical genes, grown in identical environments continue to display unique characteristics all of their own.

How trees and turnips grow fatter – researchers unlock the secrets of radial growth

Plant science researchers from SLCU and the University of Helsinki have identified key regulatory networks controlling how plants grow ‘outwards’, which could help us to grow trees to be more efficient carbon sinks and increase vegetable crop yields.

SLCU helps reveal another layer in the strigolactone signalling pathway

An interdisciplinary collaboration between structural biologists and plant scientists has revealed another layer in the signalling pathway of strigolactone – a plant hormone that plays a key role in shoot branching and other plant development processes.