Article describes how the conversion of lignocellulosic feedstocks to fermentable sugar for biofuel production is inefficient, and most strategies to enhance efficiency directly target lignin biosynthesis, with associated negative growth impacts. The authors demonstrate, for both laboratory-and field-grown plants, that expression of Pag-miR408 in poplar significantly enhances saccharification, with no requirement for acid-pretreatment, while promoting plant growth.

Article describes how DNA-based aquatic biomonitoring methods show promise to provide rapid, standardized, and efficient biodiversity assessment to supplement and in some cases replace current morphology-based approaches that are often less efficient and can produce inconsistent results. The authors present a comparison of DNA metabarcoding and morphological identification, leveraging national-scale, open-source, ecological datasets from the National Ecological Observatory Network.

Article discusses how integrated pest management (IPM) is a wide-ranging strategy that involves tactics for the structural control of pests and diseases, also known as integrated pest control (IPC). The authors' prime aim of this study is to explore global scientific publications regarding integrated pest management and map the recent global trends in this innovative research domain, thereby providing future research directions based on dynamic observations.

Article describes how, in efforts to prevent extinction, resource managers are often tasked with increasing genetic diversity in a population of concern to prevent inbreeding depression or improve adaptive potential in a changing environment. The authors used whole-genome resequencing to generate over two million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from multiple individuals of all peregrine falcon subspecies.

The editors have retracted their article Gold Nanoparticles-enabled Efficient Dual Delivery of Anticancer Therapeutics to HeLa cells. Concerns were brought to the attention of the Editors with respect to apparent inappropriate manipulation of the data in seven of the nine panels shown in Figure 7. The Editors no longer have confidence in the data reported in this Article.

Article talks about how the number of described contact sites between different subcellular compartments and structures in eukaryotic cells has increased dramatically in recent years, which has substantially reinforced the well-known premise that these kinds of connections are essential for overall cellular organization. The authors discuss contact sites involving plant lipid droplets (LDs), including LD-endoplasmic reticulum (ER) connections that mediate the biogenesis of new LDs at the ER, LD-peroxisome connections.

Data management plan for the grant, "Small RNA interactions with transgenes in genetically modified mosquito lines."

Article presents comparative biomass, metabolomic, and transcriptomic analyses between a high oil accession (HO) and low oil accession (LO) of pennycress to assess potential factors required to optimize oil content.

Article comparing priority areas for wildlife species using different methods and data types. The authors used resource selection function (RSF) models to predict high priority areas and compared this to priority areas developed using two alternative methods: (1) modified conservation buffer, and (2) utilization distribution (UD) models.

Data management plan for the grant, "GEOS Visualization And Lagrangian dynamics Immersive eXtended Reality Tool (VALIXR) for Scientific Discovery."

Article experimentally quantifies the metabolic cost of transport in Mediterranean spur-thighed tortoises walking on a treadmill while also quantifying the kinematics of their movement. Results found that tortoises move more efficiently than predicted and presents the first data demonstrating a curvilinear cost of transport over their speed range. The authors conclude that tortoises have an optimum speed at which they move to minimise their metabolic cost of locomotion.

Article analyzing transposon insertion mutants resulting in independent loss of function of five enzymes of the monolignol pathway, as well as one double mutant, in the model legume Medicago truncatula, to address whether a common mechanism linking lignin modification with perturbations in plant growth and development exists.

This article explores the relationship among MYB30, the ROS wave, and systemic acclimation in Arabidopsis by determining the SAA response to HL stress of MYB30 mutants and wild-type plants.

This article shows that the activity of N-linolenoylethanolamine (NAE 18:3) requires an intact G-protein complex. Specifically, genetic ablation of the Gβγ dimer or loss of the full set of atypical Gα subunits strongly attenuates an NAE-18:3–induced degreening of cotyledons in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) seedlings. This effect involves, at least in part, transcriptional regulation of chlorophyll biosynthesis and catabolism genes. In addition, there is feedforward transcriptional control of G-protein signaling components and G-protein interactors. These results are consistent with NAE 18:3 being a lipid signaling molecule in plants with a requirement for G-proteins to mediate signal transduction, a situation similar, but not identical, to the action of NAE endocannabinoids in animal systems.

Article demonstrating that part of the function of two SEIPIN isoforms in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), AtSEIPIN2 and AtSEIPIN3, may depend on their interaction with the vesicle-associated membrane protein (VAMP)–associated protein (VAP) family member AtVAP27-1. The authors used a combination of biochemical, cell biology, and genetics approaches to show that AtVAP27-1 interacts with the N termini of AtSEIPIN2 and AtSEIPIN3 and likely supports the normal formation of LDs. This insight indicates that the ER membrane tethering machinery in plant cells could play a role with select SEIPIN isoforms in LD biogenesis at the ER, and additional experimental evidence in Saccharomyces cerevisiae supports the possibility that this interaction may be important in other eukaryotic systems.

Article measuring lipid levels with mass spectrometry to confirm the previously observed changes in Arabidopsis thaliana leaf lipids under three heat stress regimens. Additionally, in response to heat, increased oxidation of the fatty acyl chains of leaf galactolipids, sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerols, and phosphatidylglycerols, and incorporation of oxidized acyl chains into acylated monogalactosyldiacylglycerols are shown. The authors also observed increased levels of digalactosylmonoacylglycerols and monogalactosylmonoacylglycerols. The hypothesis that a defect in sterol glycosylation would adversely affect regrowth of plants after a severe heat stress regimen was tested, but differences between wild-type and sterol glycosylation-defective plants were not detected.

Article focusing on West Nile Virus (WNV), a mosquito borne pathogen, as a case study for spatial data visualization of environmental characteristics of a vector’s habitat alongside human demographic composition for understanding potential public health risks of infectious disease.

This article is a commentary on coordinated use of methyl marks to remodel both the epigenome and the (epi)cytoskeleton, which opens the possibility for integrated regulation (referred to as ‘epiregulation’) of other higher-level functions, such as muscle contraction or learning and memory, and could even have evolutionary implications.

Article presents a study where whole transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) and differential expression analysis were used to identify early (1–3 hr) transcriptional changes induced by the exogenous treatment of NAE 18:2 and NAE 18:3 in cotyledons, roots, and seedlings.

Article presents novel insights into the molecular nature of the SH genes, thereby opening new avenues for coffee rust resistance molecular breeding.

Article is a study with the goal of optimizing and validating the use of a colorimetric plate-based respiratory burst and fluorometric plate-based phagocytic cell activity assays for use with kidney cells from the fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas), an emerging immunotoxicity model.

Article expressing two closely related plant FAD3 genes in yeast cells and found that their enzymes produced significantly different amounts of omega-3 fatty acids and that these differences correlated to differences in rates of protein turnover. The findings indicate that Fad3 protein abundance is regulated by a combination of cis-acting degradation signals and the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and that modulation of Fad3 protein amounts in response to temperature may represent one mechanism of homeoviscous adaptation in plants.

Article describing the anatomy of the trunk muscles, their properties that determine muscle performance (mass, length and physiological cross-sectional area [PCSA]) and investigating their scaling in juvenile Alligator mississippiensis spanning an order of magnitude in body mass (359 g–5.5 kg). Findings support existing anecdotal evidence that crocodilians shift their breathing mechanics as they increase in size.

This article combines in silico structural predictions with in planta complementation of the severely defective mtnip-1 mutant plants to understand the role of a series of distinct amino acids in the transporter’s function. The findings add to the knowledge of the mechanism of alternative conformational changes as well as symport transport in NPFs and enhance knowledge of the mechanisms for nitrate signaling.