Plant symbiosis articles from across Nature Portfolio

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.

Using a combination of single-cell and spatial transcriptomic analysis, Serrano et al. uncover transcriptional dynamics during the establishment of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis.

The long-read metagenome of rice phyllosphere microbiome shows novel complete chromosomes, plasmids, bacteriophages, and novel bacterial species. Notably one complete chromosome belongs to the difficult-to-culture bacterium Candidatus Saccharibacteria.

Soil microbial diversity and composition is thought to play a major role in elemental cycling. Here, the authors analyse a large dataset of soil microbiome and carbon data from European forests and find that soil fungal community composition is a strong predictor of carbon storage.

Philip Poole narrates his career story and his motivations for studying rhizobia, the agriculturally important bacterial plant symbiont responsible for fixing nitrogen.

Single-nucleus transcriptomic analysis of Medicago roots reveals dynamic cell-specific responses to the Nod factor — a bacterially secreted chito-lipopolysaccharide with a key role in the root nodule symbiosis between legumes and rhizobia — and identifies the receptor-like kinase FERONIA as a phosphorylation target of the Nod factor receptor LYK3, which together function to control nodule formation and bacterial infection.

Transcriptomics of nitrogen-fixing plants and their symbionts reveals the origins of root-nodulating symbiosis and how it has endured more in some groups than others

Various clades of legume plants irreversibly modify the development of their symbiotic nitrogen-fixing microorganisms. Key transcription factors controlling this process have been identified. They are conserved and functional even in plant species that do not induce such a terminal differentiation.

Duplication of KCBP, which encodes a plant-specific microtubule-based kinesin motor, occurs solely in legumes of the clade that form symbiosomes. The nodule-enriched KCBP (nKCBP) is co-opted by rhizobia to control central vacuole morphogenesis in symbiotic cells, thus achieving symbiosome development and nitrogen fixation.