More than a century after two introduced pathogens killed billions of American chestnut trees, introgression of resistance alleles from Chinese chestnuts has contributed to the recovery of self-sustai...

Many plant pathogenic fungi penetrate host surfaces mechanically, using turgor pressure generated by specialized infection cells called appressoria. These appressoria develop semipermeable cell walls ...

Polyamines are often associated with ribosomes and are thought to stabilize their integrity. In Arabidopsis, the polyamine thermospermine (tSpm) affects xylem cell fate. tSpm induces translation of SU...

Pangenomes identify genetic variants that inform plant breeding and evolution

Brassica rapa (Br) encompasses many morphotypes and subspecies, so it is a good model with which to investigate plant diversification and subspeciation. Here, we resequenced the genomes of 1720 Br acc...

The sugarcane genus Saccharum is characterized by complex genomes with diverse ploidy levels. We developed a multiscale graph–based pangenome representation, which integrates nine genome assemblies in...

Editors’ selections from the current scientific literature

Biological function is fundamentally determined by nucleic acid and protein sequence. Beyond encoding genetic information, nucleic acids also display complex physicochemical parameters that shape stru...

Terrestrial vascular plants operate under negative water potential, which results in hydraulic tension in the vascular system. Vascular tension varies with transpiration and soil drying and is regulat...

Plants display a wide range of life spans and aging rates. Although dynamic changes to DNA methylation are a hallmark of aging in mammals, it is unclear whether similar molecular signatures reflect ra...

Inflorescences of flowering plants adopt diverse genetically programmed and environmentally tuned architectures. By contrast, continued maintenance of the stem-cell pool within the apical meristem is ...

Prezygotic interspecific incompatibility prevents hybridization between species, which limits interbreeding strategies for crop improvement using wild relatives. The Brassica rapa female self-incompat...

Small seed “parachutes” may be causing inbreeding

The specific partnership between legumes and rhizobia relies on a chemical dialogue. Plant flavonoids activate the bacterial transcription factor NodD, which triggers production of Nod factors that ar...

Editors’ selections from the current scientific literature

Photosystem I (PSI) is a pigment-protein complex, which converts light energy into chemical energy in photosynthesis. Among photosynthetic organisms, PSI-LHC (light-harvesting complex) structures exhi...

DNA methylation loss at transposable elements (TEs) can affect neighboring genes and be epigenetically inherited in plants, yet the determinants and importance of this additional system of inheritance...

Gene expression and complex phenotypes are determined by the activity of cis-regulatory elements. However, an understanding of how extant genetic variants affect cis regulation remains limited. Here, ...

Sex determination underpins genesis of male and female flowers with particularly important implications in plant breeding. Auxin and ethylene regulate femaleness in cucurbits. In this work, we identif...

Strigolactones (SLs) are methylbutenolide molecules derived from β-carotene through an intermediate carlactonoic acid (CLA). Canonical SLs act as signals to microbes and plants, whereas noncanonical S...

Brassinosteroids are essential plant hormones that play a central role in regulating growth, development, and stress responses. Their impact on plant architecture and productivity makes them attractiv...

Salicylic acid (SA) is a key phytohormone that orchestrates immune responses against pathogens, including Pseudomonas syringae bacteria. The timing and extent of SA accumulation are tightly controlled...

Inorganic phosphate (Pi) is essential for life, and plant cells monitor Pi availability by sensing inositol pyrophosphate (PP-InsP) levels. In this work, we describe the hijacking of plant phosphate s...

Tandem kinase proteins underlie the innate immune systems of cereal plants, but how they initiate plant immune responses remains unclear. This report identifies wheat protein wheat tandem NBD 1 (WTN1)...

Establishment of the apoplastic root barrier known as the Casparian strip occurs early in root development. In legumes, this area overlaps with nitrogen-fixing nodule formation, which raises the possi...

Anthropogenic selection of grain traits such as dormancy has shaped the developmental trajectories of crops. In cereals, shortening dormancy provides rapid and even postharvest germination, but increa...

The NOSTER Science Microbiome Prize has been established to reward innovative research by young investigators working on the functional attributes of the microbiota of any organism that has potential ...

Plant pathogens use secreted effectors to trick plant cells into providing sugary treats

Plant cell walls harbor vast carbohydrate reserves, yet how pathogens unlock them remains unclear. We show that the citrus canker pathogen Xanthomonas citri subsp. citri (Xcc) mobilizes cell wall suga...

Xanthomonas spp. cause serious diseases in more than 400 plant species. The conserved AvrBs2 family effectors are among the most important virulence factors in xanthomonads, but how AvrBs2 promotes in...

Clean energy infrastructure is being deployed with unmatched scale and speed—and China is leading the way

Sex determination underpins genesis of male and female flowers with particularly important implications in plant breeding. Auxin and ethylene regulate femaleness in cucurbits. Here, we identified an a...

Color and scent are well-known pollinator cues. Some plants also produce heat, but its role remains unclear. Here, we report that plant-generated thermal infrared radiation serves as a pollination sig...