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May 23, 2023

Comparing individual cells of the maize plant

Researchers compared individual cells of important cereal crops, revealing evolutionary differences and bringing them closer to pinpointing which genes control important agricultural traits such as drought tolerance. In this illustration, the cloud of dots on the left represents all the cells from the root of maize. Within each dot, new technologies read the thousands and thousands of genes that are active in each cell. The arrows show where the cells originated in the root.

[Research supported by U.S. National Science Foundation grant IOS 1934388.]

Learn more in the New York University news release Crops evolved by swapping genetic modules between cells. (Date of image: May 2023; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: May 19, 2023)

Credit: Bruno Guillotin/Ramin Rahni


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