Molecular Plant最新文献

The accelerating growth of plant science knowledge presents a major challenge for researchers seeking to extract accurate, up-to-date knowledge from an increasingly fragmented and domain-specific corpus. General-purpose large language models (LLMs), while powerful, often misinterpret plant science terminology and lack mechanisms for source traceability. We created PlantScience.ai, a virtual plant biology scientist powered by our automated scientific knowledge graph construction pipeline (AutoSKG). PlantScience.ai exhibits expert-level reasoning in plant biology and maintains scholarly rigour in its citations. Through continuous learning, it integrates the latest research, ensuring that its knowledge base remains current and scientifically robust. Apart from providing the answers to the scientific questions, PlantScience.ai can interact with human scientists, follow instructions, and retrieve information with citation awareness, grounding each response in primary sources to ensure accuracy and verifiability. PlantScience.ai marks a pivotal advance toward a collaborative scientific paradigm in which virtual and human plant scientists work synergistically to accelerate discovery while preserving the unique value of human insight. PlantScience.ai is available at https://plantscience.ai.

Seasonal changes in day length regulate plant growth and development. FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) proteins are widely-conserved effectors of photoperiod-induced flowering, and also promote tuberization in potato and bud growth in trees. We integrate data from several model and crop species to illustrate the major features of FT function and regulation. The day lengths that induce developmental responses differ among species, and diverse examples are selected to show how this is conferred by photoperiod-dependent FT transcription in leaf vasculature. FT protein movement into the phloem sieve elements and to the shoot apical meristem is then described. The functionally important domains of FT and how they contribute to a transcriptional complex with bZIP transcription factors and 14-3-3 proteins are outlined. Functional FT is contrasted with diverged FT paralogues and related TERMINAL FLOWER 1 proteins that act as negative regulators of FT activity to modulate developmental responses. A relay mechanism in which FT genes or closely related paralogues are transcriptionally induced at the shoot apex after the arrival of FT protein is described in cereals, tomato and Arabidopsis and in the stolon of potato, and we argue that it plays a role in sustaining photoperiod-induced developmental transitions. Finally, we discuss unresolved questions in FT signaling and how these might be addressed.

Ethylene is a gaseous plant hormone that regulates plant growth, development, and stress adaptation, yet the molecular mechanism by which ethylene receptors perceive the hormone and initiate downstream signaling remains poorly understood. Here, using genetic analyses in Arabidopsis thaliana, we find that the two ethylene receptor subfamilies do not act in parallel: subfamily I receptors constitute the core ethylene-sensing module, whereas subfamily II receptors require subfamily I receptors to function. Moreover, subfamily I receptors are also required for the rapid phase I growth inhibition that occurs within minutes of ethylene exposure, suggesting the involvement of a fast signaling mechanism. Using electrophysiological assays in Xenopus oocytes and mammalian HEK293F cells, we reveal that only subfamily I receptors exhibit Ca²⁺ permeability. The N-terminal residues of the subfamily I receptor ETR1, including Cys65 and Phe76, are essential for this Ca²⁺ permeability. Furthermore, ethylene promotes ETR1 Ca²⁺ permeability in the Xenopus oocyte system and induces cytosolic Ca²⁺ influx in plants in a manner dependent on subfamily I receptors. Overall, this work supports a mechanistic framework in which subfamily I receptors integrate ethylene sensing with calcium influx, providing new insight into how plants translate hormonal cues into downstream signaling events.

The agricultural Green Revolution (GR) of the 1950s and 1960s drove unprecedented increases in crop yields through widespread adoption of semi-dwarf cereal varieties with mutations affecting gibberellins (GAs) biosynthesis or signaling pathways. Although semi-dwarf plants exhibited strong lodging resistance, their low nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) demanded excessive inorganic fertilizer inputs, leading to severe and widespread environmental degradation. To boost sustainable agriculture, the approaches of "Next-Generation Green Revolution (NGR)" has emerged as a promising solution to cut chemical fertilizer use in high-yield crops. Nevertheless, inherent trade-offs between grain yield and NUE remain a major challenge to achieving agricultural sustainability. Strigolactones (SLs), a class of phytohormone discovered in 2008, play multifaceted roles comparable to those of GAs and have demonstrated significant promise for both conventional and modern crop improvement. Recent advances in AI-driven protein engineering suggest that precision pyramiding of favorable alleles from GAs and SLs biosynthesis and signaling pathways holds a strong potential to revolutionize NGR through optimized phytohormone regulation. This review analyzes the fundamental drivers of GR success, synthesizes current understanding of GA-SL crosstalk in modulating nitrogen-responsive control of plant architecture and branching patterns, and elucidates the coordination between plant growth and metabolism in regulating NUE and grain yield. This knowledge will establish a framework for leveraging beneficial traits while mitigating pleiotropic trade-offs in current cultivars, thereby enabling rapid progress in the NGR breeding programs.

Regeneration involves large-scale transcriptional reprogramming to drive cell identity transitions. These transcriptional changes are tightly coupled with chromatin remodelling but molecular mechanisms that coordinate these changes remain unclear. Here we show that WOUND INDUCED DEDIFFERENTIATION 1 (WIND1) transcription factor promotes somatic embryogenesis by repressing pre-existing cell fate and activating new cell identity programmes. WIND1 interacts with histone deacetylase HISTONE DEACETYLASE 9 (HDA9) and histone acetyltransferase complex component HOMOLOG OF YEAST ADA1 2a (ADA2a) via conserved N-terminal domain. These interactions enable WIND1 to mediate both H3K27 deacetylation and acetylation at distinct target loci, leading to repression of organ-primordium/procambium development genes such as AINTEGUMENTA (ANT) and activation of embryogenesis regulators including LEAFY COTYLEDON 2 (LEC2). Our findings identify WIND1 as a bifunctional chromatin regulator that integrates opposing histone acetylation dynamics to coordinate transcriptional reprogramming. This mechanism provides a molecular framework for how a transcription factor directs complex cell fate transitions during regeneration.

To coordinate growth and acclimation, plants must accurately discriminate physiological reactive oxygen species (ROS) signals from those derived from environmental stress. Xing et al. (2026) resolve the 'specificity paradox' of ROS signaling by identifying Radical-induced Cell Death1 (RCD1) as a redox-responsive molecular sieve. Under basal conditions, RCD1 utilizes its intrinsically disordered regions to drive liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), forming nuclear condensates that preferentially entrap the transcription factor ASYMMETRIC LEAVES1 (AS1). Conversely, stress-induced ROS accumulation triggers the oxidation of a conserved cysteine triad (C371/379/392), provoking a phase transition that dismantles these assemblies. This structural reorganization triggers ZAT12-mediated antioxidant defenses, establishing redox-driven phase separation as a pivotal regulatory nexus for the rapid, spatiotemporal recalibration of plant physiological states.