Molecular quantitative trait loci (molQTLs) provide key insights into how non-coding variants shape complex traits and disease. In this Review, the authors outline statistical and machine learning app...

Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 17 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41576-026-01008-3In this Review, Buckley et al. discuss how DNA methylation is interpreted in mammals and plants, focusing on the reader proteins and transcription factors that bind to methylated DNA and the downstream mechanisms by which they regulate transcriptional and epigenetic states.

Population-level 3D genome atlas of 34 semi-wild and 267 cultivated allotetraploid cottons reveals domestication-selected chromatin conformations that enhance cotton fiber quality and unlock cryptic breeding targets.

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, Published online: 14 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41580-026-01017-4Single-molecule genomics methods are used to study the activity of regulatory factors on individual DNA molecules genome-wide, thereby enabling quantification of molecular heterogeneity and co-occurrence of regulatory events. This Expert Recommendation article provides a practical guide for adopting single-molecule genomics and outlines best practices.

The genomic regions regulating gene expression are often themselves transcribed into a variety of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs). However, the regulatory roles of this noncoding transcription remain largely ...

Researchers may be wasting resources following false trails due to variations in interpretative methods.

Croll lab at University of Neuchatel. The lab of Daniel Croll wants to understand how pathogens evolve to cause disease. For this, we mainly focus on major crop pathogens to unravel mechanisms of rapi...

Closing date: Monday 21 September 2026, 23:59

This study introduces iChIP2, a low-input chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing method that profiles histone post-translational modifications (hPTMs) simultaneously across diverse eukar...

Structural variants (SVs) are abundant in plant genomes and influence agronomic traits, yet their regulatory interpretation remains challenging. Here, we combine pangenome-wide profiling of DNA methyl...

A naturally occurring variant in the Arabidopsis core clock gene EARLY FLOWERING 3 alters temperature responsiveness and has been selected for in regions o

Understanding how natural genetic variants affect protein structure and function is central to plant biology. The 1001 Genomes Project has catalogued millions of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)...

Reproductive and vegetative development are, together with longevity, crucial processes related to crop yield. In grasses like barley, the shoot apical mer

Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 11 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41576-026-00979-7Plants must accurately time flowering by integrating seasonal temperature cues to ensure reproductive success. This Review describes how two mechanisms — rapid transcriptional responses and long-term epigenetic memory — work together in parallel to robustly control flowering time, and it highlights that variation in these processes provides important information for the future of crops under a changing climate.

Comparative Hi-C analysis across 1,025 species reveals that genome architecture has evolved along distinct trajectories, with plants favoring global folding and animals developing checkerboard compart...

ThermoCas9, a genome-editing enzyme that is sensitive to the DNA methylation status of the target locus, is characterized and shows promise for targeting hypomethylated DNA regions in cancer cells.

Chromatin plays a central role in gene regulation, but chromatin systems are only known for a few model species. This study analyses chromatin regulatory landscapes in brown algal lineages to elucidat...

How can expression of a specific gene be quantitatively regulated? In this review, we discuss two possible modalities. In one, the level of mRNA generated from each gene copy can be smoothly varied gi...

A recent "Journal of Experimental Botany" study by the Truernit and Zeeman groups (IMPB) reinforces the view that the phloem, the tissue transporting sugars in plants, is central to growth coordinatio...

Phenotypic plasticity (PP) is a fundamental property of plants, enabling a single genotype to produce different phenotypes in response to environmental variation. This ability is crucial for survival ...

Author summary In eukaryotes, DNA is tightly associated with histone proteins. Histone covalent modifications and histones isoforms, also called histone variants provide most of the complexity of chro...

The plant circadian clock is a genetic circuit composed of multiple mutually-regulating transcription factors that together synchronize internal biological rhythms to the ~24-hour period of planetary ...

Conventional methods have failed to simultaneously integrate one-dimensional transcriptional studies with three-dimensional chromatin architecture. In this issue, Li et al. present Hi-Coatis, an antibody- and probe-free approach that seamlessly maps active transcription-associated chromatin networks with high sensitivity and spatial resolution.