Opening options for material transfer.

Unlabelled: The Open Material Transfer Agreement is a material-transfer agreement that enables broader sharing and use of biological materials by biotechnology practitioners working within the practical realities of technology transfer.

Supplementary Information: The online version of this article (doi:10.1038/nbt.

A transatlantic perspective on 20 emerging issues in biological engineering.

Advances in biological engineering are likely to have substantial impacts on global society. To explore these potential impacts we ran a horizon scanning exercise to capture a range of perspectives on the opportunities and risks presented by biological engineering. We first identified 70 potential issues, and then used an iterative process to prioritise 20 issues that we considered to be emerging, to have potential global impact, and to be relatively unknown outside the field of biological engineering.

Barley plants over-expressing the NAC transcription factor gene HvNAC005 show stunting and delay in development combined with early senescence.

The plant-specific NAC transcription factors have attracted particular attention because of their involvement in stress responses, senescence, and nutrient remobilization. The HvNAC005 gene of barley encodes a protein belonging to subgroup NAC-a6 of the NAC family. This study shows that HvNAC005 is associated with developmental senescence.

Meeting report: GARNet/OpenPlant CRISPR-Cas workshop.

Targeted genome engineering has been described as a "game-changing technology" for fields as diverse as human genetics and plant biotechnology. One technique used for precise gene editing utilises the CRISPR-Cas system and is an effective method for genetic engineering in a wide variety of plants. However, many researchers remain unaware of both the technical challenges that emerge when using this technique or of its potential benefits.

Standards for plant synthetic biology: a common syntax for exchange of DNA parts.

Inventors in the field of mechanical and electronic engineering can access multitudes of components and, thanks to standardization, parts from different manufacturers can be used in combination with each other. The introduction of BioBrick standards for the assembly of characterized DNA sequences was a landmark in microbial engineering, shaping the field of synthetic biology. Here, we describe a standard for Type IIS restriction endonuclease-mediated assembly, defining a common syntax of 12 fusion sites to enable the facile assembly of eukaryotic transcriptional units.

Control of sulfur partitioning between primary and secondary metabolism in Arabidopsis.

Sulfur is an essential nutrient for all organisms. Plants are able to take up inorganic sulfate and assimilate it into a range of bio-organic molecules either after reduction to sulfide or activation to 3'-phosphoadenosine 5'-phosphosulfate. While the regulation of the reductive part of sulfate assimilation and the synthesis of cysteine has been studied extensively in the past three decades, much less attention has been paid to the control of synthesis of sulfated compounds.

miR395 is a general component of the sulfate assimilation regulatory network in Arabidopsis.

In plants, microRNAs play an important role in many regulatory circuits, including responses to environmental cues such as nutrient limitations. One such microRNA is miR395, which is strongly up-regulated by sulfate deficiency and targets two components of the sulfate uptake and assimilation pathway. Here we show that miR395 levels are affected by treatments with metabolites regulating sulfate assimilation.

Interplay of SLIM1 and miR395 in the regulation of sulfate assimilation in Arabidopsis.

MicroRNAs play a key role in the control of plant development and response to adverse environmental conditions. For example, microRNA395 (miR395), which targets three out of four isoforms of ATP sulfurylase, the first enzyme of sulfate assimilation, as well as a low-affinity sulfate transporter, SULTR2;1, is strongly induced by sulfate deficiency. However, other components of sulfate assimilation are induced by sulfate starvation, so that the role of miR395 is counterintuitive.

Control of sulfur partitioning between primary and secondary metabolism.

Sulfur is an essential nutrient for all organisms. Plants take up most sulfur as inorganic sulfate, reduce it and incorporate it into cysteine during primary sulfate assimilation. However, some of the sulfate is partitioned into the secondary metabolism to synthesize a variety of sulfated compounds.

Regulation of sulfate assimilation in Physcomitrella patens: mosses are different!

Sulfur is an essential nutrient, taken up as sulfate from soil, reduced and incorporated into bioorganic compounds in plant cells. The pathway of sulfate assimilation is highly regulated in a demand-driven manner in seed plants. To test the evolutionary conservation of the regulatory mechanisms, we analyzed regulation of the pathway in the model for basal plants, the moss Physcomitrella patens.

Genes of primary sulfate assimilation are part of the glucosinolate biosynthetic network in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Glucosinolates are plant secondary metabolites involved in responses to biotic stress. The final step of their synthesis is the transfer of a sulfo group from 3'-phosphoadenosine 5'-phosphosulfate (PAPS) onto a desulfo precursor. Thus, glucosinolate synthesis is linked to sulfate assimilation.

Adenosine-5'-phosphosulfate kinase is essential for Arabidopsis viability.

In Arabidopsis thaliana, adenosine-5'-phosphosulfate kinase (APK) provides activated sulfate for sulfation of secondary metabolites, including the glucosinolates. We have successfully isolated three of the four possible triple homozygous mutant combinations of this family. The APK1 isoform alone was sufficient to maintain WT levels of growth and development.

Plant sulfate assimilation genes: redundancy versus specialization.

Sulfur is an essential nutrient present in the amino acids cysteine and methionine, co-enzymes and vitamins. Plants and many microorganisms are able to utilize inorganic sulfate and assimilate it into these compounds. Sulfate assimilation in plants has been extensively studied because of the many functions of sulfur in plant metabolism and stress defense.