OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Seeds are the basis of agriculture, yet their full transcriptional complexity has remained unknown. We used single-nucleus RNA-sequencing to characterize developing Arabidopsis thaliana seeds, with a focus on endosperm. Endosperm, a site of gene imprinting, mediates the relationship between the maternal parent and embryo. We identified new cell types in the chalazal endosperm region, which interfaces with maternal tissue for nutrient unloading. We further demonstrated that the extent of parental bias of maternally expressed imprinted genes varies with cell cycle phase, and that imprinting of paternally expressed imprinted genes is strongest in chalazal endosperm. These data indicate imprinting is heterogenous and suggest that parental conflict, which is proposed to drive the evolution of imprinting, is fiercest at the boundary between filial and maternal tissues.
