Molecular Plant最新文献

{"title":"Stigmatic papilla cell secretes jasmonic acid to promote pollen germination through calcium signaling","authors":"Xiangfeng Liu, Xiu Wang, Zhuang Yao, Shuqi Wang, Kaiting Sun, Ni Long, Jiayu Zhu, Yi Liu, Xiongbo Peng","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":"161 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":27.5,"publicationDate":"2026-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148754761","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":"Completing the PAL-dependent salicylic acid pathway reveals lineage-specific evolutionary rewiring.","authors":"Kyounghee Lee, Heejin Yoo","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":32.7,"publicationDate":"2026-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148759462","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":"Completing the PAL-dependent salicylic acid pathway reveals lineage-specific evolutionary rewiring","authors":"Kyounghee Lee, Heejin Yoo","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":27.5,"publicationDate":"2026-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148754762","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":"NO stop in sight on STOP1 regulation","authors":"Christin Naumann,Steffen Abel","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":"277 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":27.5,"publicationDate":"2026-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148728034","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":"Beyond the root: microbial partners extend plant metabolic pathways to mobilize iron","authors":"Abdullah Shalmani,Ricardo F.H. Giehl","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.007","url":null,"abstract":"Under iron (Fe)-limiting conditions, Arabidopsis thaliana roots secrete coumarins, phenylpropanoid-derived secondary metabolites that can mobilize sparingly available Fe and shape the composition of the root-associated microbiome. Recent studies show that microbial partners can act on root-secreted coumarins to produce forms with higher Fe-mobilization capacity. Besides providing a mechanistic understanding of the positive interaction of soil microbiota to improved plant Fe nutrition, these findings provide new evidence that the functional boundaries of plant metabolic pathways extend into the rhizosphere","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":"135 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":27.5,"publicationDate":"2026-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148728035","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":"Decoding genetic basis of nitrogen-use efficiency in maize using AI-generated deep phenotypes.","authors":"Haoyan Yang, Lingju Zeng, Xiangjian Gou, Yang Shao, Xianlong Song, Shuang Zhang, Xiaoyan Qian, Zhenwei Zhang, Xiao Wang, Haitao Li, Bo Peng, Juliet Nkiruka Anyanwu, Zihao Zheng, Linqian Han, Ling Zhou, Mustafa Bulut, Peng Song, Wanneng Yang, Yingjie Xiao, Wenqiang Li, Mingqiu Dai, Fazhan Qiu, Jian Zhang, Baobao Wang, Alisdair R Fernie, Haiyang Wang, Han Zhao, Xianran Li, Jianbing Yan, Tingting Guo","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.08.005","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Improving nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) is essential for sustainable agriculture, yet conventionally measured plant characteristics have limited value as NUE proxies. Here, we show that artificial intelligence (AI) can uncover previously unrecognized phenotypic variation associated with NUE, showing genetic variation that is largely missed by conventional phenotypes. We trained a convolutional neural network (CNN) on 25,080 maize images to learn features that distinguish how plants respond to low- and high-nitrogen (N) conditions, achieving 96.7% accuracy. The learned features were defined as deep phenotypes. Compared with conventional phenotypes, deep phenotypes showed greater phenotypic variation and higher heritability, enabling the identification of 523 significant loci compared with 21 for conventional phenotypes. We next investigated candidate genes underlying these loci and used these findings to interpret the learned features. Lower CNN layers largely reflected visual patterns overlapping with conventional phenotypes, whereas deeper layers encoded additional features associated with N-responsive genetic variation. To validate candidate genes identified by the AI framework, we functionally characterized Liguleless2 (LG2), a basic-leucine zipper transcription factor, and demonstrated that lg2 mutants exhibit enhanced root architecture and increased N-uptake efficiency. Field trials of 200 hybrids across diverse N environments further supported the AI findings, with each beneficial allele increasing ear weight by an average of 18 g per plot under low-N conditions. These results show how integrating AI and biology can uncover biologically relevant variation underlying complex traits such as NUE and enhance the interpretability of AI models.</p>","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":32.7,"publicationDate":"2026-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148713325","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 optimized fast-repetition-rate fluorometry method reveals photochemical flux bottlenecks in C₃ photosynthesis that limit carboxylation and growth.","authors":"Gennady Ananyev, Marie-Claire Ten Veldhuis, Apostolos Zournas, Colin Gates, G Charles Dismukes","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.05.023","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.05.023","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Using the fast-repetition-rate fluorometry (FRRF) technique to monitor the variable yield of chlorophyll fluorescence emission (Fv = Fm - Fo), we develop a pulse sequence to measure flux bottlenecks that limit the transport of electrons and protons from their water oxidation source through the photosynthetic electron transport chain (PETC) into CO₂ carboxylation and triose phosphate production within the Calvin-Benson-Bassham (CBB) cycle of living organisms. FRRF uses a single source of microsecond flashes to excite photochemistry and produce fluorescence, thus removing slower non-photochemical quenching contributions to total Fv (pFv = total Fv - NPQ). pFv is the fraction of total Fv that originates from net charge separation and recombination in photosystem II: P ↔ P∗ ↔ P⁺Q_A^- ↔... Subsequent charge-transfer steps are monitored, revealing fluxes from water oxidation (reducing P⁺) into downstream carrier pools of the PETC (oxidizing Q_A^-). As these pools fill in sequence, Q_A/Q_A^- repopulates at characteristic lag times as measured by pFv dynamics. Three temporal phases of pFv are observable in various phototrophs performing C₃ photosynthesis that reveal five flux bottlenecks between redox carriers in the PETC and CBB cycle. pFv dynamics reveal that the PETC and CBB cycles operate synchronously, governed by the law of mass action and microscopic reversibility, with CO₂ accelerating upstream reactions in both linear and cyclic electron pathways. pFv fluxes reliably monitor species-dependent phenotypic changes in PETC/CBB bottlenecks that determine carboxylation rate and influence cellular growth rate. This versatile technique can be applied to monitor the effects of transgene or environmental changes on light-use efficiency in diverse photosynthetic organisms.</p>","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1663-1677"},"PeriodicalIF":32.7,"publicationDate":"2026-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148150282","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":"A peroxisomal metabolic route from benzoyl-CoA to benzyl alcohol for phenylalanine-derived salicylic acid biosynthesis in rice.","authors":"Yukang Wang, Shuyan Song, Wenxuan Zhang, Qianwen Deng, Yang Lai, Zhixue Huo, Shanshan Li, Qi Zhang, Yuchen Ping, Jiarong Chen, Zeng Tao, Yanlei Feng, Jianping Hu, Pengxiang Fan, Ronghui Pan","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.06.011","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.06.011","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1551-1555"},"PeriodicalIF":32.7,"publicationDate":"2026-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148369132","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":"Mitochondrial retrograde signaling: Integrating metabolic, environmental, and hormonal cues to shape plant development and growth.","authors":"Yanqiao Zhu, Yang Zhao, Ghazanfar Abbas Khan, James Whelan","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.05.016","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.05.016","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mitochondria are central regulators of energy production and cellular stress responses in plants. When mitochondrial function is impaired retrograde signaling pathways are triggered to adjust nuclear gene expression and restore cellular homeostasis. This process, known as mitochondrial retrograde regulation (MRR), integrates signals derived from reactive oxygen species, redox changes, and metabolic imbalances. In this review, we examine the major MRR pathways in plants, with emphasis on both transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation. We explore how specific disruptions in the mitochondrial electron transport chain result in distinct nuclear responses and how these are influenced by developmental context and hormonal signaling. Recent studies have revealed interactions between mitochondria, chloroplasts, and the endoplasmic reticulum, highlighting the complexity of inter-organelle communication. Of particular interest is the coordination between mitochondrial and chloroplast signals through shared metabolic shuttles, raising questions about the autonomy of MRR in planta. We conclude by identifying current challenges, including the need to determine whether mitochondrial stress responses occur independently of chloroplast signaling or have become co-regulated over evolutionary time. Understanding these mechanisms will be essential for dissecting energy organelle coordination and developing strategies to improve stress resilience in plants.</p>","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1607-1627"},"PeriodicalIF":32.7,"publicationDate":"2026-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148016517","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":"Two-step biosynthesis of benzyl alcohol from benzoyl-CoA within the phenylalanine-derived salicylic acid biosynthetic pathway in plants.","authors":"Chao Zhang, Bao Zhu, Deli Sun, Xiaowen Wu, Zhihua Wu, Suna Zeng, Pingfei Han, Yaqi Wang, Hongyi Lv, Yanjun Zhang, Peng Huang, Wei Zhang, Jiangzhe Zhao, Kewei Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.05.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.molp.2026.05.006","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Salicylic acid (SA) is a well-known medicinal compound and an essential phytohormone that regulates plant growth and stress responses. SA biosynthesis in plants occurs through two primary pathways: the isochorismate synthase (ICS) pathway and the phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) pathway. The ICS pathway is predominantly present in Brassicaceae species, whereas the PAL pathway is more broadly distributed across most seed plants. Although the fundamental steps of the PAL pathway have been delineated, the biosynthesis of its crucial intermediate, benzyl alcohol, remains unknown. In this study, we reveal a two-step pathway for benzyl alcohol biosynthesis from benzoyl-CoA (BA-CoA) in rice. We demonstrate that two uncharacterized peroxisomal enzymes, rice cinnamoyl-CoA reductase 21 (OsCCR21) and cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase 6 (OsCAD6), catalyze successive reduction steps in this biosynthetic process. Specifically, OsCCR21, rather than the putative benzaldehyde synthase (BS) heterodimers OsBSα/β, functions as benzoyl-CoA reductase (BCR) to convert BA-CoA into benzaldehyde. OsCAD6 subsequently acts as benzyl alcohol dehydrogenase (BAD) to reduce benzaldehyde to benzyl alcohol. Cross-species comparative genomic analysis combined with in vitro enzymatic assays suggests that peroxisomal OsCCR21 orthologs are specifically conserved in the Poaceae, whereas PhBSα/β and OsCAD6 orthologs are broadly distributed across most angiosperms. Interestingly, PhBSα/β orthologs in Poaceae exhibit slight BS activity, whereas they have evolved strong BS activity in non-Poaceae angiosperms. These findings reveal that two alternative sets of enzymes, BCR-BAD and BSα/β-BAD, are employed for benzyl alcohol biosynthesis from BA-CoA in Poaceae or non-Poaceae angiosperms, providing important insights into phenylalanine-derived SA biosynthesis and plant secondary metabolism.</p>","PeriodicalId":19012,"journal":{"name":"Molecular Plant","volume":" ","pages":"1628-1646"},"PeriodicalIF":32.7,"publicationDate":"2026-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147942168","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}