Genomic and phenotypic screening of the A. E. Watkins landrace wheat collection identifies beneficial novel haplotypes demonstrated to improve modern wheat without negative linkage drag or pleiotropy.

The PIN-FORMED (PIN) auxin efflux carriers in the plasma membrane are activated by the D6 serine/threonine protein kinase (D6PK). A recent study reveals how D6PK is anchored to membranes and trafficked between the plasma membrane and transport vesicles.

Plants constantly adjust their gene expression and metabolism to thrive in diverse environments. In legume root nodules, the surprising role of zinc as an intracellular messenger links environmental changes to transcriptional control.

This Review aims to define an updated nomenclature for plasma membrane domains in plants. The authors are experts in this field who unite here in an effort to eliminate the ambiguities and confusion that have persisted until now.

Abnormal microbiota and autoimmunity have been observed in plants both in the laboratory and in nature. Our work establishes a connection between these phenomena, revealing an important role of the endogenous microbiota in modulating host immune homeostasis.

Thermogenesis, which is present in a small but diverse range of extant plant lineages, increases the odds of pollination by providing heat rewards for insect pollinators and enhancing the transmission of attractants. In this Review, exploration of the fossil record uncovers the evolutionary history of thermogenic plants, revealing a close relationship with insect pollinators since the Palaeozoic era.

This study enhanced prime editing (PE) for dicot plants using new combinations of PE components delivered by a geminiviral replicon. This achieved up to 38.2% PE efficiency in tomatoes and Arabidopsis, enabling precise breeding applications in dicots.

The authors show that dysbiotic microbiota can cause severe autoimmunity conditions in Arabidopsis plants, a concept that is reminiscent of autoimmunity–dysbiosis interactions found in mammals.

Cell walls in grasses contain arabinoxylan polysaccharides decorated with ferulate groups but the mechanism by which the ferulate is attached to arabinoxylans has long remained unknown. A new study shows that ferulate is transferred to arabinoxylan from a 3,6-di-O-feruloyl sucrose intermediate formed in a sucrose ferulate cycle.

A key feature of the evolutionary transformation of grass cell walls is the cross-linking of interwoven arabinoxylans via ferulate units. This study discovered an unexpected sucrose ferulate cycle that mediates the feruloylation of arabinoxylan.

According to Elton’s biotic resistance hypothesis, species-rich communities are more resistant to plant invasion. Guo et al. examine a dataset of over 12,000 vegetation plots and report that the influence of resident community richness and relatedness on invasion resistance varies in direction and magnitude along the introduction–naturalization–invasion continuum.

Transposable elements frequently invade centromeres, yet their influence on centromere function has long been enigmatic. A new study reveals that epigenetic silencing of centromeric transposable elements is essential for chromosome cohesion and proper segregation during cell division.