Plant sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Gamma triplication arises via two whole-genome duplications early in eudicot history, but the relative timing of these is unclear. Here, the authors report the genomes of Buxales and Trochodendrales and reject the hypothesis of gamma arising via inter-lineage hybridization between ancestral eudicot lineages.

    • Andre S. Chanderbali
    • , Lingling Jin
    •  & Pamela S. Soltis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The plant biomass is a composite formed by a variety of polysaccharides and an aromatic polymer named lignin. Here, the authors use solid-state NMR spectroscopy to unveil the carbohydrate-aromatic interface that leads to the variable architecture of lignocellulose biomaterials.

    • Alex Kirui
    • , Wancheng Zhao
    •  & Tuo Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Huanglongbing is a devastating disease of citrus, caused by phloem-colonizing bacteria. Here, the authors present evidence that the disease is the result of an exacerbated immune response to the infection, including production of reactive oxygen species, and that antioxidants and a growth-promoting hormone can mitigate disease symptoms.

    • Wenxiu Ma
    • , Zhiqian Pang
    •  & Nian Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pollen can be a vehicle for viral spread among plants. Here, Fetters et al. apply viral metagenomics to characterize the pollen virome of a diverse set of wild plants, find known and previously un-known viruses and show that wild plant species harbor more viruses when surrounded by less natural vegetation and when they have traits that promote increased plant-pollinator vector interactions.

    • Andrea M. Fetters
    • , Paul G. Cantalupo
    •  & Tia-Lynn Ashman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nitrogen deficiency can cause floral abortion during reproductive development of rice. Here the authors show that when nitrogen is limited, rice plants require the ETFβ protein, which is involved in branched chain amino acid catabolism, to promote nitrogen reutilization and support the initiation of meiosis.

    • Han Yang
    • , Yafei Li
    •  & Zhukuan Cheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Products of the mevalonate pathway support plant development. Here the authors show that the extracellular ATP receptor P2K1 phosphorylates mevalonate kinase and this affects the mevalonate pathway.

    • Sung-Hwan Cho
    • , Katalin Tóth
    •  & Gary Stacey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Function of nucleosomal acetyltransferase of H4 (NuA4), one major complex of HAT, remains unclear in plants. Here, the authors generate mutants targeting two components of the putative NuA4 complex in Arabidopsis (EAF1 and EPL1) and show their roles in photosynthesis genes regulation through H4K5ac and H2A.Z acetylation.

    • Tomasz Bieluszewski
    • , Weronika Sura
    •  & Piotr A. Ziolkowski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Macadamia is a recently domesticated nut crop. Here, the authors report the genome assembly of Hawaiian cultivar ‘Kau’ and conduct population genomic analyses to reveal the origin of Hawaiian cultivars and the genomic basis for one-step operation for the clonal crop domestication.

    • Jishan Lin
    • , Wenping Zhang
    •  & Ray Ming

  • Article
    | Open Access

    CLASSY (CLSY) proteins regulate DNA methylation at specific loci in the Arabidopsis genome. Here the authors show that the CLSYs also control tissue-specific DNA methylation, including at siren loci in ovules, and that the lack of an individual CLSYs can shift the epigenetic landscape between tissues.

    • Ming Zhou
    • , Ceyda Coruh
    •  & Julie A. Law

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forest dynamics are monitored at large scales with remote sensing, but individual tree data are necessary for ground-truthing and mechanistic insights. This study on high temporal resolution dendrometer data across Europe reveals that the 2018 heatwave affected tree physiology and growth in unexpected way.

    • Roberto L. Salomón
    • , Richard L. Peters
    •  & Kathy Steppe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    UVR8 is a plant photoreceptor that dissociates into monomers after sensing UV. Here, via ultrafast spectroscopy and computational calculations, the authors describe the dynamics of charge separation and charge neutralization in UVR8 and describe how these unzip interactions at the dimer interface.

    • Xiankun Li
    • , Zheyun Liu
    •  & Dongping Zhong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reports on the origin of European wine grapes are controversial. Here, the authors perform population genetics analyses on a large set of representative wine-making varieties and reveal a single domestication event at the origin of the entire germplasm followed by repeated introgression from wild populations.

    • Gabriele Magris
    • , Irena Jurman
    •  & Michele Morgante

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The plant defense hormone salicylic acid has structural similarity to oxicam-type non-steroidal antiinflammatories. Here the authors show oxicams, as well as endogenous salicylic acid, can alter cellular redox state and immune signaling without affecting the redox status of cysteines in NPR1.

    • Nobuaki Ishihama
    • , Seung-won Choi
    •  & Ken Shirasu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plant roots host diverse fungal communities that affect plant health. Here, Mesny et al. use comparative genomics and transcriptomics of fungal isolates from the Arabidopsis thaliana root mycobiota, together with root colonization assays, to identify genetic determinants of endophytism.

    • Fantin Mesny
    • , Shingo Miyauchi
    •  & Stéphane Hacquard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Increasing rice yield while improving resource use efficiency is of great importance. This study examines cropping systems globally to highlight areas where rice production can be improved by prioritizing R&D strategies.

    • Shen Yuan
    • , Bruce A. Linquist
    •  & Patricio Grassini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nonphotochemical quenching (NPQ) protects photosynthetic complexes from damage due to excess light. Here the authors explore different conformations of the plant CP29 light harvesting complex, showing how protein tuning of carotenoid excitation energies and carotenoid-chlorophyll interactions account for NPQ.

    • Edoardo Cignoni
    • , Margherita Lapillo
    •  & Benedetta Mennucci

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Human-driven movements and extinctions of species have made plant communities across biomes more homogenous. Here the authors quantify plant vascular species and phylogenetic homogenization across the globe, finding that non-native species naturalisations have been a major driver.

    • Barnabas H. Daru
    • , T. Jonathan Davies
    •  & Charles C. Davis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    SPX proteins sense phosphate levels in plant cells by binding to inositol polyphosphates (InsP) and suppressing the activity of PHR transcription factors. Here the authors show that when bound to InsP6, the rice SPX1 protein inhibits the activity of PHR2 by attenuating both its dimerization and DNA binding activity.

    • Jia Zhou
    • , Qinli Hu
    •  & Weiman Xing

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Unlike wild Vitis species, which produce either female or male flowers, modern grapevine cultivars form hermaphrodite flowers for self-pollination. Here, the authors report that the VviPLATZ1 (plant AT-rich sequence-and zinc-binding protein1) transcription factor functions in controlling female flower morphology determination.

    • Pat Iocco-Corena
    • , Jamila Chaïb
    •  & Harley M. Smith

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The molecular origins of epialleles remain unknown. Here, the authors show that a positive feedback loop between H3K9me2 and CMT2/3 is a major contributing factor to the origins of spontaneous epialleles and that heterochromatin is a quantitative trait associated with spontaneous epiallele formation.

    • Yinwen Zhang
    • , Hosung Jang
    •  & Robert J. Schmitz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chloranthales remain the last lineage of core angiosperms that lacks a nuclear genome assembly. Here, the authors report the genome assembly of Chloranthus sesilifolius and show that both hybridization and incomplete lineage sorting may have contributed to the phylogenetic incongruities in the literature.

    • Jianxiang Ma
    • , Pengchuan Sun
    •  & Yongzhi Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Starch is the major form of energy storage in plant cells and forms discrete, semi-crystalline granules within plastids. Here the authors use electron tomography and nanoSIMS to show that Arabidopsis starch granules initiate in stromal pockets between thylakoid membranes that coalesce before growing anisotropically.

    • Léo Bürgy
    • , Simona Eicke
    •  & Samuel C. Zeeman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chloranthales remain the last lineage of core angiosperms that lacks a nuclear genome assembly. Here, the authors report the genome assembly of Chloranthus spicatus and show its contribution to deepen our understanding on diversification, phylogeny, and genome evolution in angiosperms.

    • Xing Guo
    • , Dongming Fang
    •  & Huan Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The genes underlying stripe rust host specificity between wheat and barley remain unknown. Here, the authors report that Rps6, Rps7 and Rps8 determine host species specificity in barley at different stages of the pathogen lifecycle and the barley powdery mildew immune receptor Mla8 and Rps7 are the same gene.

    • Jan Bettgenhaeuser
    • , Inmaculada Hernández-Pinzón
    •  & Matthew J. Moscou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plant light harvesting complex (LHC)‐like proteins protect the photosynthetic machinery from excess light. Here the authors show that plant LHC‐like dimers are stabilized by associated pigments and can quench chlorophyll fluorescence via direct energy transfer from chlorophyll to zeaxanthin.

    • Petra Skotnicová
    • , Hristina Staleva-Musto
    •  & Roman Sobotka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Auxin inactivation plays important roles in plant development. Here the authors show that the main route of IAA inactivation in Arabidopsis is via conjugation by GH3 IAA-amidosynthetases followed by DAO1 dioxygenase-mediated oxidation of the conjugated forms and hydrolysis by ILR1 to release inactive oxIAA.

    • Ken-ichiro Hayashi
    • , Kazushi Arai
    •  & Kosuke Fukui

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Developing more productive and sustainable crops will be essential to achieving food security in coming decades. A core process in plant evolution has been the transfer of chloroplast-encoded genes to the nuclear genome. We propose reverting this process as a new approach to improve plant disease resistance and photosynthesis in future crops.

    • Briardo Llorente
    • , María Eugenia Segretin
    •  & Nicolás E. Blanco

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The cereal endosperm is a major determinant of seed size and shape. Here the authors show that a lncRNA, MISSEN, is expressed from the maternally derived allele in rice seeds and regulates a helicase family protein to support efficient nuclear division, distribution and cellularization in the endosperm.

    • Yan-Fei Zhou
    • , Yu-Chan Zhang
    •  & Yue-Qin Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While multiple resistance-to-Phytophthora sojae loci/alleles have been mapped in soybean, many of them have become ineffective to newly evolved isolates. Here, the authors show that a 27.7-kb nucleotide-binding site-leucine-rich repeat gene confers broad-spectrum resistance to P. sojae in soybean.

    • Weidong Wang
    • , Liyang Chen
    •  & Jianxin Ma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    WUSCHEL is a critical regulator of stem cell homeostasis at shoot apical meristems. Here the authors show that CLV3 regulates WUSCHEL by not only repressing WUSCHEL transcription but also by controlling nuclear export of WUSCHEL and therefore its diffusion between adjacent cells.

    • Alexander Plong
    • , Kevin Rodriguez
    •  & G. Venugopala Reddy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite extensive characterization of crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) in terrestrial angiosperms, little attention has been given to aquatics and early diverging land plants. Here, the authors assemble the genome of Isoetes taiwanensis and investigate the genetic factors driving CAM in this aquatic lycophyte.

    • David Wickell
    • , Li-Yaung Kuo
    •  & Fay-Wei Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The rice Lsi1 aquaporin mediates uptake of silicic acid via the roots. Here the authors show the crystal structure of rice Lsi1 and characterize a unique five residue hydrophilic selectivity filter providing a structural basis for the highly selective activity of Lsi1 in Si uptake.

    • Yasunori Saitoh
    • , Namiki Mitani-Ueno
    •  & Michihiro Suga

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