Volume 10 Issue 9, September 2024

The UK plant science strategy establishes “Diverse People and Skills” as an important component of the future of plant science. However, ethnicity data from the UK Higher Education Statistics Authority show that UK plant science students are disproportionately white at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. We explore possible reasons for this and offer recommendations for action.

Genomic and phenotypic screening of the A. E. Watkins landrace wheat collection identifies beneficial novel haplotypes demonstrated to improve modern wheat without negative linkage drag or pleiotropy.

Transposable elements frequently invade centromeres, yet their influence on centromere function has long been enigmatic. A new study reveals that epigenetic silencing of centromeric transposable elements is essential for chromosome cohesion and proper segregation during cell division.

Cell walls in grasses contain arabinoxylan polysaccharides decorated with ferulate groups but the mechanism by which the ferulate is attached to arabinoxylans has long remained unknown. A new study shows that ferulate is transferred to arabinoxylan from a 3,6-di-O-feruloyl sucrose intermediate formed in a sucrose ferulate cycle.

The PIN-FORMED (PIN) auxin efflux carriers in the plasma membrane are activated by the D6 serine/threonine protein kinase (D6PK). A recent study reveals how D6PK is anchored to membranes and trafficked between the plasma membrane and transport vesicles.

We developed aChIP, an advanced chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP–seq) method for economically important plant organs (EIPOs). aChIP provides a valuable epigenomics resource that comprises 14 representative EIPOs, and reveals the dynamics and functions of histone modification landscapes during rapeseed seed dormancy and germination.

Abnormal microbiota and autoimmunity have been observed in plants both in the laboratory and in nature. Our work establishes a connection between these phenomena, revealing an important role of the endogenous microbiota in modulating host immune homeostasis.

Regulation of chloroplast protein import by chloroplast-associated protein degradation (CHLORAD) is crucial for chloroplast biogenesis and plant development. This study identifies PUX10 as a CHLORAD component that functions as a membrane-bound scaffold to recruit cytosolic Cdc48 to the chloroplast surface and bring it into proximity with CHLORAD substrates.

A seed reactivates its genome to germinate. By creating a single-cell atlas of germinating embryos, we show that gene expression is highly dynamic and cell specific. Most cells adopt a single, common transcriptional state early in germination, and then transition to distinct gene regulatory programs that drive the functions of individual cell types.

Thermogenesis, which is present in a small but diverse range of extant plant lineages, increases the odds of pollination by providing heat rewards for insect pollinators and enhancing the transmission of attractants. In this Review, exploration of the fossil record uncovers the evolutionary history of thermogenic plants, revealing a close relationship with insect pollinators since the Palaeozoic era.

Centromeric satellite repeats on Arabidopsis chromosome 5 are interrupted by ATHILA5 retrotransposons, and cohesion is compromised in ddm1 chromatin remodelling mutants that have also lost RNAi. Mis-segregation is epigenetically inherited but can be rescued by ATHILA5 small RNA.

This study presents an advanced ChIP-seq method, provides a valuable epigenomics resource for 14 economically important plant organs and reveals histone modification landscape dynamics and functions during rapeseed seed dormancy and germination.

This study establishes an efficient method for site-specific SUMOylation proteomics, achieving a comprehensive SUMOylome comprising over 2,200 SUMOylation sites, which could serve as a useful tool and valuable resource for future research in plants.

By comparing signalling of two receptor pathways in the same cell-type, the study describes maintenance of signalling specificity at a single-cell level and the role of MAPK networks in this process.

The authors show that dysbiotic microbiota can cause severe autoimmunity conditions in Arabidopsis plants, a concept that is reminiscent of autoimmunity–dysbiosis interactions found in mammals.

Transcription factors are regarded as desirable targets for drug discovery. Here novel chemical compounds that delay flower petal aging were identified by a cell-free high-throughput screening system targeting EPHEMERAL1, a NAC transcription factor.

A key feature of the evolutionary transformation of grass cell walls is the cross-linking of interwoven arabinoxylans via ferulate units. This study discovered an unexpected sucrose ferulate cycle that mediates the feruloylation of arabinoxylan.

Extraction of ubiquitinated proteins from chloroplasts in CHLORAD is driven by the cytosolic ATPase Cdc48. The UBX-domain protein PUX10 is shown to be a CHLORAD component that recruits Cdc48 to the chloroplast surface.

This study reports a transcriptome atlas of the germinating Arabidopsis embryo at single-cell resolution. It demonstrates that the cells of the embryo transition from a common transcriptional state to cell type-specific states as germination progresses.