How a Simple Trick is Transforming Plant Gene Analysis

Researchers have published a simple trick that improves the accuracy of techniques that help us understand how external variables – such as temperature – affect gene activity in plants.

“There are really two contributions here,” says Colleen Doherty, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of molecular and structural biochemistry at North Carolina State University. “First, we’re raising the visibility of a problem that many of us in the plant research community were unfamiliar with, as well as highlighting the solution. Second, we’ve demonstrated that addressing this problem can make a significant difference in our understanding of gene activity in plants.”