Reviews & Analysis

A growing body of evidence suggests that plant interactions with Streptomyces species confer resilience to drought. In this Perspective, Liu et al. discuss this potential co-evolutionary relationship and how it can be exploited to achieve sustainable agriculture in a hotter and drier world.

We present a comprehensive quantitative analysis of the proteome across 14 major rice tissues, which reveals that N⁶-methyladenosine (m⁶A) is negatively correlated with protein abundance. This finding provides insight into the longstanding discrepancy observed between RNA and protein levels in plants.

Desiccation tolerance evolved multiple times across the land plants for survival in water-limited habitats. We find that desiccation tolerance evolved convergently in grasses by independent duplication of the same gene family and activation of conserved, ancestral protective pathways.

Degradome sequencing of semi-active DCL1 mutants separates true miRNAs from DCL1-independent small RNAs in Arabidopsis thaliana and illustrates the processing pattern of 147 pri-miRNAs. In parallel, DMS-MaPseq decodes the in vivo secondary structures of pri-miRNAs, enabling a better understanding of cleavage modes and of the impact of DCL1 cofactors on cleavage.

Characterization of Rmg8, the major resistance gene for wheat blast found in common wheat, brought a surprise: it is a variant of Pm4, a resistance gene for powdery mildew disease. Both genes recognize the AVR-Rmg8 gene of the wheat blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype Triticum (MoT), which results in resistance against this pathogen. This discovery opens avenues for developing wheat varieties to combat wheat blast disease.

Two groups of scientists independently engineer gene drives in Arabidopsis thaliana, demonstrating the possibility for spreading fitness-reducing genetic modifications through wild populations of plants for population suppression.

Hybrid seed production is a labour-intensive manual process that limits fully mechanized hybrid rice breeding. We identify GSE3 as a gene that regulates grain size and demonstrate that fully mechanized hybrid seed production and increased seed number can be achieved using small-grain alleles of GSE3 in male sterile lines.

The authors present the design principles of a synthetic earthmoss (Physcomitrium patens) genome. To aid future genome design projects, they also develop GenoDesigner, a software package that provides users with an intuitive graphical interface to efficiently manipulate genomic sequences.

The endosperm is a seed tissue that supports the embryo. In most flowering plant species, the endosperm starts as a coenocyte that cellularizes after a defined number of mitotic divisions. We show that endosperm cellularization is under antagonistic parental control mediated by a family of maternally expressed auxin response factors.

Creation of a plastid genome without an inverted repeat in Nicotiana tabacum reveals a role for the inverted repeat in gene dosage and the regulation of replication by total DNA content rather than copy number.

The nuclear pore is known as a large protein complex for the transport of macromolecules between the nucleus and the cytoplasm. Comprehensive proteomic analyses revealed a novel role of the nuclear pore complex as a platform for the coordinated regulation of the flow from transcription to translation.

Owing to its size and complexity, the genome of modern sugarcane has never been previously assembled in its entirety, which leaves it as one of the last remaining major crop species without a reference genome. The newly completed polyploid assembly of an archetypal modern hybrid reveals the complexities of sugarcane’s genetic past, and presents new opportunities for the researchers and breeders invested in its future.

The functions of a small family of non-secreted peptides, originally identified as critical communicators of the plant’s iron status, have expanded. The involvement of these effectors in disparate signalling cascades underlines the pivotal role peptides have in responses to the environment.

In this Review, Bergis-Ser and colleagues discuss how chromatin dynamics and nucleic acid metabolism impinge on genome integrity, both as sources of spontaneous lesions and as key contributors to the DNA damage response in plants.

A triplet repeat expansion in Arabidopsis induces gene silencing that results in a severe growth defect. We show that an interplay between a SUMO protease and histone readers of active and inactive marks is required for this gene silencing, which highlights the importance of post-translational modifiers in chromatin remodelling.

In this Perspective, Vincent Merckx and colleagues discuss an important but overlooked aspect of mycorrhizal interactions, mycoheterotrophy, in the context of recent arguments about the importance of these interactions to forest functioning.

Plant species diversity declines from tropical to temperate latitudes. Local neighbourhood interactions among species that favour heterospecifics over conspecifics may have a role in shaping this latitudinal diversity gradient, but perhaps not as traditionally thought.

BZR/BES transcription factors are widely recognized as mediators of brassinosteroid (BR)-responsive gene expression in seed plants, but details of how they act in species that lack BR perception are unclear. A study now uncovers an ancient mission of a BZR/BES transcription factor in sexual organ development in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha.

The carbon fixation machinery α-carboxysome of the marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus is composed of an icosahedral-like proteinaceous shell that encapsulates the enzymes RuBisCO and carbonic anhydrase. Our cryo-EM structure reveals how thousands of protein components self-assemble into the α-carboxysome and characterizes the multivalent interactions by which the scaffolding protein CsoS2 crosslinks the shell with internal RuBisCO molecules.

In this Perspective, Mascher et al. look back on 30 years of genetic and genomic research in cereal crops. Genome sequences have revealed common evolutionary patterns as well as differences between species and will support applications in breeding.