{"title":"Efficient control of root-knot nematodes by expressing Bt nematicidal proteins in root leucoplasts.","authors":"Yong Wang, Mengnan Wang, Yali Zhang, Longwei Peng, Dadong Dai, Fengjuan Zhang, Jiang Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.004","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Root-knot nematodes (RKNs) are plant pests that infect the roots of host plants. Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) nematicidal proteins exhibited toxicity to nematodes. However, the application of nematicidal proteins for plant protection is hampered by the lack of effective delivery systems in transgenic plants. In this study, we discovered the accumulation of leucoplasts (root plastids) in galls and RKN-induced giant cells. RKN infection causes the degradation of leucoplasts into small vesicle-like structures, which are responsible for delivering proteins to RKNs, as observed through confocal microscopy and immunoelectron microscopy. We showed that different-sized proteins from leucoplasts could be taken up by Meloidogyne incognita female. To further explore the potential applications of leucoplasts, we introduced the Bt crystal protein Cry5Ba2 into tobacco and tomato leucoplasts by fusing it with a transit peptide. The transgenic plants showed significant resistance to RKNs. Intriguingly, RKN females preferentially took up Cry5Ba2 protein when delivered through plastids rather than the cytosol. The decrease in progeny was positively correlated with the delivery efficiency of the nematicidal protein. In conclusion, this study offers new insights into the feeding behavior of RKNs and their ability to ingest leucoplast proteins, and demonstrates that root leucoplasts can be used for delivering nematicidal proteins, thereby offering a promising approach for nematode control.</p>","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1504-1519"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141988401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Molecular PlantPub Date : 2024-10-07Epub Date: 2024-08-22DOI: 10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.006
Dan Hu, Yilong Yao, Yan Lv, Jun You, Yu Zhang, Qingya Lv, Jiawei Li, Stephanie Hutin, Haiyan Xiong, Chloe Zubieta, Xuelei Lai, Lizhong Xiong
{"title":"The OsSRO1c-OsDREB2B complex undergoes protein phase transition to enhance cold tolerance in rice.","authors":"Dan Hu, Yilong Yao, Yan Lv, Jun You, Yu Zhang, Qingya Lv, Jiawei Li, Stephanie Hutin, Haiyan Xiong, Chloe Zubieta, Xuelei Lai, Lizhong Xiong","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.006","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cold stress is one of the major abiotic stress factors affecting rice growth and development, leading to significant yield loss in the context of global climate change. Exploring natural variants that confer cold resistance and the underlying molecular mechanism responsible for this is the major strategy to breed cold-tolerant rice varieties. Here, we show that natural variations of a SIMILAR to RCD ONE (SRO) gene, OsSRO1c, confer cold tolerance in rice at both seedling and booting stages. Our in vivo and in vitro experiments demonstrated that OsSRO1c possesses intrinsic liquid-liquid phase-separation ability and recruits OsDREB2B, an AP2/ERF transcription factor that functions as a positive regulator of cold stress, into its biomolecular condensates in the nucleus, resulting in elevated transcriptional activity of OsDREB2B. We found that the OsSRO1c-OsDREB2B complex directly responds to low temperature through dynamic phase transitions and regulates key cold-response genes, including COLD1. Furthermore, we showed that introgression of an elite haplotype of OsSRO1c into a cold-susceptible indica rice could significantly increase its cold resistance. Collectively, our work reveals a novel cold-tolerance regulatory module in rice and provides promising genetic targets for molecular breeding of cold-tolerant rice varieties.</p>","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1520-1538"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142018086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Strigolactone-gibberellin crosstalk mediated by a distant silencer fine-tunes plant height in upland cotton.","authors":"Zailong Tian, Baojun Chen, Hongge Li, Xinxin Pei, Yaru Sun, Gaofei Sun, Zhaoe Pan, Panhong Dai, Xu Gao, Xiaoli Geng, Zhen Peng, Yinhua Jia, Daowu Hu, Liru Wang, Baoyin Pang, Ai Zhang, Xiongming Du, Shoupu He","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.007","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Optimal plant height is crucial in modern agriculture, influencing lodging resistance and facilitating mechanized crop production. Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) is the most important fiber crop globally; however, the genetic basis underlying plant height remains largely unexplored. In this study, we conducted a genome-wide association study to identify a major locus controlling plant height (PH1) in upland cotton. This locus encodes gibberellin 2-oxidase 1A (GhPH1) and features a 1133-bp structural variation (PAV<sup>PH1</sup>) located approximately 16 kb upstream. The presence or absence of PAV<sup>PH1</sup> influences the expression of GhPH1, thereby affecting plant height. Further analysis revealed that a gibberellin-regulating transcription factor (GhGARF) recognizes and binds to a specific CATTTG motif in both the GhPH1 promoter and PAV<sup>PH1</sup>. This interaction downregulates GhPH1, indicating that PAV<sup>PH1</sup> functions as a distant upstream silencer. Intriguingly, we found that DWARF53 (D53), a key repressor of the strigolactone (SL) signaling pathway, directly interacts with GhGARF to inhibit its binding to targets. Moreover, we identified a previously unrecognized gibberellin-SL crosstalk mechanism mediated by the GhD53-GhGARF-GhPH1/PAV<sup>PH1</sup> module, which is crucial for regulating plant height in upland cotton. These findings shed light on the genetic basis and gene interaction network underlying plant height, providing valuable insights for the development of semi-dwarf cotton varieties through precise modulation of GhPH1 expression.</p>","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1539-1557"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142018087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Molecular PlantPub Date : 2024-10-07Epub Date: 2024-09-02DOI: 10.1016/j.molp.2024.09.002
Shichen Han, Yulong Wang, Yingxiu Li, Rui Zhu, Yunsong Gu, Jin Li, Haifeng Guo, Wei Ye, Hafiz Ghualm Nabi, Tao Yang, Yanming Wang, Pengli Liu, Junzhi Duan, Xingming Sun, Zhanying Zhang, Hongliang Zhang, Zichao Li, Jinjie Li
{"title":"The OsNAC41-RoLe1-OsAGAP module promotes root development and drought resistance in upland rice.","authors":"Shichen Han, Yulong Wang, Yingxiu Li, Rui Zhu, Yunsong Gu, Jin Li, Haifeng Guo, Wei Ye, Hafiz Ghualm Nabi, Tao Yang, Yanming Wang, Pengli Liu, Junzhi Duan, Xingming Sun, Zhanying Zhang, Hongliang Zhang, Zichao Li, Jinjie Li","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.09.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.09.002","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Drought is a major environmental stress limiting crop yields worldwide. Upland rice (Oryza sativa) has evolved complex genetic mechanisms for adaptative growth under drought stress. However, few genetic variants that mediate drought resistance in upland rice have been identified, and little is known about the evolution of this trait during rice domestication. In this study, using a genome-wide association study we identified ROOT LENGTH 1 (RoLe1) that controls rice root length and drought resistance. We found that a G-to-T polymorphism in the RoLe1 promoter causes increased binding of the transcription factor OsNAC41 and thereby enhanced expression of RoLe1. We further showed that RoLe1 interacts with OsAGAP, an ARF-GTPase activating protein involved in auxin-dependent root development, and interferes with its function to modulate root development. Interestingly, RoLe1 could enhance crop yield by increasing the seed-setting rate under moderate drought conditions. Genomic evolutionary analysis revealed that a newly arisen favorable allelic variant, proRoLe1<sup>-526T</sup>, originated from the midwest Asia and was retained in upland rice during domestication. Collectively, our study identifies an OsNAC41-RoLe1-OsAGAP module that promotes upland rice root development and drought resistance, providing promising genetic targets for molecular breeding of drought-resistant rice varieties.</p>","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1573-1593"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142126226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Molecular PlantPub Date : 2024-10-07Epub Date: 2024-08-22DOI: 10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.008
Jordan Powers, Xing Zhang, Andres V Reyes, Raul Zavaliev, Roni Ochakovski, Shou-Ling Xu, Xinnian Dong
{"title":"Next-generation mapping of the salicylic acid signaling hub and transcriptional cascade.","authors":"Jordan Powers, Xing Zhang, Andres V Reyes, Raul Zavaliev, Roni Ochakovski, Shou-Ling Xu, Xinnian Dong","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.008","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>For over 60 years, salicylic acid (SA) has been known as a plant immune signal required for basal and systemic acquired resistance. SA activates these immune responses by reprogramming ∼20% of the transcriptome through NPR1. However, components in the NPR1 signaling hub, which appears as nuclear condensates, and the NPR1 signaling cascade have remained elusive due to difficulties in studying this transcriptional cofactor, whose chromatin association is indirect and likely transient. To overcome this challenge, we applied TurboID to divulge the NPR1 proxiome, which detected almost all known NPR1 interactors as well as new components of transcription-related complexes. Testing of new components showed that chromatin remodeling and histone demethylation contribute to SA-induced resistance. Globally, the NPR1 proxiome has a striking similarity to the proxiome of GBPL3 that is involved in SA synthesis, except for associated transcription factors (TFs), suggesting that common regulatory modules are recruited to reprogram specific transcriptomes by transcriptional cofactors, like NPR1, through binding to unique TFs. Stepwise green fluorescent protein-tagged factor cleavage under target and release using nuclease (greenCUT&RUN) analyses showed that, upon SA induction, NPR1 initiates the transcriptional cascade primarily through association with TGACG-binding TFs to induce expression of secondary TFs, predominantly WRKYs. Further, WRKY54 and WRKY70 were identified to play a major role in inducing immune-output genes without interacting with NPR1 at the chromatin. Moreover, loss of condensate formation function of NPR1 decreases its chromatin association and transcriptional activity, indicating the importance of condensates in organizing the NPR1 signaling hub and initiating the transcriptional cascade. Collectively, this study demonstrates how combinatorial applications of TurboID and stepwise greenCUT&RUN transcend traditional genetic methods to globally map signaling hubs and transcriptional cascades for in-depth explorations.</p>","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1558-1572"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11540436/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142046921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Molecular PlantPub Date : 2024-10-07Epub Date: 2024-09-02DOI: 10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.012
Andreas M Fischer
{"title":"AtWRKY1 at the intersection of plant development and defense: The cost of coping with adversity.","authors":"Andreas M Fischer","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.012","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.08.012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1498-1500"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142120285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Molecular PlantPub Date : 2024-10-07Epub Date: 2024-09-02DOI: 10.1016/j.molp.2024.09.001
Jason W Reed, Bastiaan O R Bargmann
{"title":"Too SHY 2 repress.","authors":"Jason W Reed, Bastiaan O R Bargmann","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.09.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.09.001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1496-1497"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142126227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An unmanned ground vehicle phenotyping-based method to generate three-dimensional multispectral point clouds for deciphering spatial heterogeneity in plant traits.","authors":"Pengyao Xie, Zhihong Ma, Ruiming Du, Xin Yang, Yu Jiang, Haiyan Cen","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.09.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.09.004","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Fusing three-dimensional (3D) and multispectral (MS) imaging data holds promise for high-throughput and comprehensive plant phenotyping to decipher genome-to-phenome knowledge. Acquiring high-quality 3D MS point clouds (3DMPCs) of plants remains challenging because of poor 3D data quality and limited radiometric calibration methods for plants with a complex canopy structure. Here, we present a novel 3D spatial-spectral data fusion approach to collect high-quality 3DMPCs of plants by integrating the next-best-view planning for adaptive data acquisition and neural reference field (NeREF) for radiometric calibration. This approach was used to acquire 3DMPCs of perilla, tomato, and rapeseed plants with diverse plant architecture and leaf morphological features evaluated by the accuracy of chlorophyll content and equivalent water thickness (EWT) estimation. The results showed that the completeness of plant point clouds collected by this approach was improved by an average of 23.6% compared with the fixed viewpoints alone. The NeREF-based radiometric calibration with the hemispherical reference outperformed the conventional calibration method by reducing the root mean square error (RMSE) of 58.93% for extracted reflectance spectra. The RMSE for chlorophyll content and EWT predictions decreased by 21.25% and 14.13% using partial least squares regression with the generated 3DMPCs. Collectively, our study provides an effective and efficient way to collect high-quality 3DMPCs of plants under natural light conditions, which improves the accuracy and comprehensiveness of phenotyping plant morphological and physiological traits, and thus will facilitate plant biology and genetic studies as well as crop breeding.</p>","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1624-1638"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142291745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Natural variations of maize ZmLecRK1 determine its interaction with ZmBAK1 and resistance patterns to multiple pathogens.","authors":"Zhenju Li, Junbin Chen, Chuang Liu, Shengfeng He, Mingyu Wang, Lei Wang, Vijai Bhadauria, Shiwei Wang, Wenyu Cheng, Hui Liu, Xiaohong Yang, Mingliang Xu, You-Liang Peng, Wangsheng Zhu","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.09.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2024.09.006","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Maize (Zea mays) is one of the most important crops in the world, but its yield and quality are seriously affected by diverse diseases. Identifying broad-spectrum resistance genes is crucial for developing effective strategies to control the disease in maize. In a genome-wide study in maize, we identified a G-type lectin receptor kinase ZmLecRK1, as a new resistance protein against Pythium aphanidermatum, one of the causal pathogens of stalk rot in maize. Genetic analysis showed that the specific ZmLecRK1 allele can confer resistance to multiple pathogens in maize. The cell death and disease resistance phenotype mediated by the resistant variant of ZmLecRK1 requires the co-receptor ZmBAK1. A naturally occurring A404S variant in the extracellular domain of ZmLecRK1 determines the ZmLecRK1-ZmBAK1 interaction and the formation of ZmLecRK1-related protein complexes. Interestingly, the ZmLecRK1 susceptible variant was found to possess the amino acid S404 that is present in the ancestral variants of ZmLecRK1 and conserved among the majority of grass species, while the resistance variant of ZmLecRK1 with A404 is only present in a few maize inbred lines. Substitution of S by A at position 404 in ZmLecRK1-like proteins of sorghum and rice greatly enhances their ability to induce cell death. Further transcriptomic analysis reveals that ZmLecRK1 likely regulates gene expression related to the pathways in cell wall organization or biogenesis in response to pathogen infection. Taken together, these results suggest that the ZmLecRK1 resistance variant enhances its binding affinity to the co-receptor ZmBAK1, thereby enhancing the formation of active complexes for defense in maize. Our work highlights the biotechnological potential for generating disease-resistant crops by precisely modulating the activity of ZmLecRK1 and its homologs through targeted base editing.</p>","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1606-1623"},"PeriodicalIF":17.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142291747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}