Strigolactone articles from across Nature Portfolio

This Review summarizes recent knowledge and offers new insight about the role of strigolactone signalling in the integration of nutritional and metabolic status, as well as its consequences for plant development and architecture.

Here the authors show that fertilization controls rice tiller numbers through the transcription of a rice MAX1-like gene involved in strigolactone biosynthesis. Promoter variation lines have the potential to improve yield when fertilizer is limited.

Strigolactone (SL) regulates plant development. Structural analysis shows that when SL binds its receptor ShHTL5, conformational changes occur including the creation of internal tunnels that posit an explanation for how SL by-products exit the receptor after signalling.

Lipochitooligosaccharide (LCO) perception by legumes is required to establish symbiotic relationships with nitrogen fixing bacteria. Here the authors show that nutrient starvation can activate LCO perception in cereals to promote symbiotic association with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

Parasitic plants are able to grow towards potential hosts. Here the authors show that strigolactones produced by the host plants can act as chemoattractants for the root parasites Phtheirospermum japonicum and Striga hermonthica.

Strigolactone agonists could potentially help control noxious weeds by promoting suicidal germination. Here the authors describe a series of small molecule agonists that stimulate germination via the Striga ShHTL7 receptor and show that stereochemistry and hydrolysis-independent signalling mediate potency.

The levels of plant hormones are broadly determined by their relative rates of biosynthesis and degradation, but a degradation pathway for strigolactones has been missing. Now an enzyme has been discovered that can break down strigolactones and thereby influence plant development.

Seed germination is tightly regulated so that it only occurs in optimal environmental conditions; for root parasitic plants, this is the presence of a potential host plant revealed by strigolactone exudates. New research shows that, unexpectedly, this response to strigolactone bypasses the core gibberellin-dependent pathway for germination.