The Plant Journal最新文献

Plant specialized metabolites play key roles in diverse physiological processes and ecological interactions. Identifying structurally novel metabolites, as well as discovering known compounds in new species, is often crucial for answering broader biological questions. The Piper genus (Piperaceae family) is known for its special phytochemistry and has been extensively studied over the past decades. Here, we investigated the alkaloid diversity of Piper fimbriulatum, a myrmecophytic plant native to Central America, using a metabolomics workflow that combines untargeted LC–MS/MS analysis with a range of recently developed computational tools. Specifically, we leverage open MS/MS spectral libraries and metabolomics data repositories for metabolite annotation, guiding isolation efforts toward structurally new compounds (i.e., dereplication). As a result, we identified several alkaloids belonging to five different classes and isolated one novel seco-benzylisoquinoline alkaloid featuring a linear quaternary amine moiety which we named fimbriulatumine. Notably, many of the identified compounds were never reported in Piperaceae plants. Our findings expand the known alkaloid diversity of this family and demonstrate the value of revisiting well-studied plant families using state-of-the-art computational metabolomics workflows to uncover previously overlooked chemodiversity. To contextualize our findings within a broader biological context, we employed a workflow for automated mining of literature reports of the identified alkaloid scaffolds and mapped the results onto the angiosperm tree of life. By doing so, we highlight the remarkable alkaloid diversity within the Piper genus and provide a framework for generating hypotheses on the biosynthetic evolution of these specialized metabolites. Many of the computational tools and data resources used in this study remain underutilized within the plant science community. This manuscript demonstrates their potential through a practical application and aims to promote broader accessibility to untargeted metabolomics approaches.

Bioengineering efforts to increase oil in non-storage vegetative tissues, which constitute the majority of plant biomass, are promising sustainable sources of renewable fuels and feedstocks. While plants typically do not accumulate significant amounts of triacylglycerol (TAG) in vegetative tissues, we report here that the expression of a plastid-localized phospholipase A1 protein, DEFECTIVE IN ANTHER DEHISCENCE1 (DAD1), led to a substantial increase in leaf TAG in Arabidopsis. Using an inducible system to control DAD1 expression circumvented growth penalties associated with overexpressing DAD1 and resulted in a rapid burst of TAG within several hours. The increase of TAG was accompanied by the formation of oil bodies in the leaves, petioles, and stems, but not in the roots. Lipid analysis indicated that the increase in TAG was negatively correlated with plastidial galactolipid concentration. The fatty acid (FA) composition of TAG predominantly consisted of 18:3. Expression of DAD1 in the fad3fad7fad8 mutant, devoid of 18:3, resulted in comparable TAG accumulation with 18:2 as the major FA constituent, reflecting the flexible in vivo substrate use of DAD1. The transient expression of either Arabidopsis DAD1 or Nicotiana benthamiana DAD1 (NbDAD1) in N. benthamiana leaves stimulated the accumulation of TAG. Similarly, transgenic soybeans expressing Arabidopsis DAD1 exhibited an accumulation of TAG in the leaves, showcasing the biotechnological potential of this technology. In summary, inducible expression of a plastidial lipase resulted in enhanced oil production in vegetative tissues, extending our understanding of lipid remodeling mediated by DAD1 and offering a valuable tool for metabolic engineering.

Sugarcane, which provides 80% of global table sugar and 40% of biofuel, presents unique breeding challenges due to its highly polyploid, heterozygous, and frequently aneuploid genome. Significant progress has been made in developing genetic resources, including the recently completed reference genome of the sugarcane cultivar R570 and pan-genomic resources from sorghum, a closely related diploid species. Biotechnological approaches including RNA interference (RNAi), overexpression of transgenes, and gene editing technologies offer promising avenues for accelerating sugarcane improvement. These methods have successfully targeted genes involved in important traits such as sucrose accumulation, lignin biosynthesis, biomass oil accumulation, and stress response. One of the main transformation methods—biolistic gene transfer or Agrobacterium-mediated transformation—coupled with efficient tissue culture protocols, is typically used for implementing these biotechnology approaches. Emerging technologies show promise for overcoming current limitations. The use of morphogenic genes can help address genotype constraints and improve transformation efficiency. Tissue culture-free technologies, such as spray-induced gene silencing, virus-induced gene silencing, or virus-induced gene editing, offer potential for accelerating functional genomics studies. Additionally, novel approaches including base and prime editing, orthogonal synthetic transcription factors, and synthetic directed evolution present opportunities for enhancing sugarcane traits. These advances collectively aim to improve sugarcane's efficiency as a crop for both sugar and biofuel production. This review aims to discuss the progress made in sugarcane methodologies, with a focus on RNAi and gene editing approaches, how RNAi can be used to inform functional gene targets, and future improvements and applications.

In blue light, cryptochrome photoreceptors inhibit the key repressor of light signaling, the COP1/SPA ubiquitin ligase, to promote photomorphogenic responses. This inhibition relies on the direct interaction between COP1 and cryptochromes. Here, we analyzed the molecular mechanism of CRY1-mediated inhibition of COP1. We show that the VP motif in the C-terminal domain of CRY1 is essential for the COP1-CRY1 interaction in Arabidopsis. Phenotypic analysis of transgenic Arabidopsis plants harboring a mutation in the VP motif reveals that the VP motif of CRY1 is required for blue light-induced responses, such as seedling de-etiolation and anthocyanin biosynthesis. Via its VP motif, CRY1 inhibits the interaction between COP1 and the COP1 substrate transcription factors PAP2 and HY5. Replacing the VP motif of CRY1 with that of the human COP1 interactor TRIB1 produces a functional photoreceptor in transgenic plants. Since HY5, PAP2 and CRY1 interact with COP1 through their respective VP motifs, our results demonstrate that CRY1 inhibits the activity of COP1 by competitively displacing substrates from COP1. Taken together with previous results showing VP-dependent substrate displacement by photoactivated CRY2 and UVR8 photoreceptors, our results highlight the conservation of this mechanism across multiple photoreceptors.

Synthetic gene circuits offer powerful new approaches for engineering plant traits by enabling precise control over gene expression through programmable logical operations. Unlike simple ‘always-on’ transgenes, circuits can integrate multiple input signals to achieve sophisticated spatiotemporal regulation of target genes while minimising interference with host cellular processes. Recent advances have demonstrated several platforms for building plant gene circuits, including systems based on bacterial transcription factors, site-specific recombinases and CRISPR/Cas components. These diverse molecular tools allow the construction of circuits that perform Boolean logic operations to control transgene expression or modulate endogenous pathways. However, implementing synthetic gene circuits in plants faces unique challenges, including long generation times that slow design-build-test cycles, limited availability of characterised genetic parts across species and technical hurdles in stable transformation. This review examines the core principles and components of plant synthetic gene circuits, including sensors, integrators, and actuators. We discuss recent technological developments, key challenges in circuit design and implementation, and strategies to overcome them. Finally, we explore the future applications of synthetic gene circuits in agriculture and basic research, from engineering stress resistance to enabling controlled bioproduction of valuable compounds. As this technology matures, synthetic gene circuits have the potential to enable sophisticated new plant traits that respond dynamically to environmental and developmental cues.