Plant cells are surrounded by an intricately structured protective coat called the cell wall. It’s built of cellulose microfibrils intertwined with polysaccharides like hemicellulose or pectin. We ...

A professor of plant molecular biology wants people to know that plants have stem cells too. Just like in the medical world, plant stem cells could support human growth and development when used to ...

Imagine if our bodies could grow new organs throughout our entire lives. Plants do this constantly, thanks to tiny, powerful reservoirs of stem cells. But how do these cells know when to divide, and ...

A mutant seedling revealed how plant tissues scatter incoming light, allowing plants to sense its direction and move toward it. On a shelf lined with terra cotta pots, herbs bend their stems toward ...

What makes them unique: Plant cells have structures like cell walls, large vacuoles, and chloroplasts, enabling ...

Before seedlings can photosynthesize, they depend on fatty acids—and on peroxisomes to process them. Researchers discovered that the protein PEX11 not only helps these structures divide but also ...

Artistic rendering of cellulose biosynthesis with zoomed in view. Individual cellulose chains (dark brown) are synthesized by plasma membrane-bound (purple) cellulose synthase enzyme complexes (cream) ...