The study examined how DNA methylation influences cold stress priming in Arabidopsis thaliana, revealing that primed plants exhibit distinct gene expression and methylation patterns compared to non-primed plants. DNA methylation mutants, especially met1 lacking CG methylation, showed altered cold memory and misregulation of the CBF gene cluster, indicating that methylation ensures transcriptional precision during stress recall.

The authors used a bottom‑up thermodynamic modelling framework to investigate how plants decode calcium signals, starting from Ca2+ binding to EF‑hand proteins and extending to higher‑order decoding modules. They identified six universal Ca2+-decoding modules that can explain variations in calcium sensitivity among kinases and provide a theoretical basis for interpreting calcium signal amplitude and frequency in plant cells.

The authors compiled and standardized published data on Rubisco dark inhibition for 157 flowering plant species, categorizing them into four inhibition levels and analyzing phylogenetic trends. Their meta‑analysis reveals a complex, uneven distribution of inhibition across taxa, suggesting underlying chloroplast microenvironment drivers and providing a new resource for future photosynthesis improvement efforts.

The study identifies Arabidopsis HSFA1 transcription factors as critical regulators of wound‑induced callus formation and shoot regeneration, showing that loss of HSFA1 impairs, while overexpression enhances, cellular reprogramming. Time‑series RNA‑seq and ChIP‑seq reveal HSFA1 directly activates key reprogramming genes (WIND1, PLT3, ZAT6), and its activity is modulated by SIZ1‑mediated SUMOylation.

The study employed computational approaches to characterize the SUMOylation (ULP) machinery in Asian rice (Oryza sativa), analyzing phylogenetic relationships, transcriptional patterns, and protein structures across the reference genome, a population panel, and wild relatives. Findings reveal an expansion of ULP genes in cultivated rice, suggesting selection pressure during breeding and implicating specific ULPs in biotic and abiotic stress responses, providing resources for rice improvement.

The authors generated a comprehensive SUMO Cell Atlas for Arabidopsis roots, mapping the expression and subcellular localization of all SUMO proteins and proteases across different tissue types. They discovered that stress‑induced SUMO conjugation is primarily controlled by tissue‑specific regulation of the SUMO E2 ligase, and that distinct root tissues employ unique protease combinations in response to salt, osmotic, and biotic stresses, revealing how SUMOylation orchestrates root development and stress adaptation.

The study identifies specific lysine residues where the Arabidopsis transcription factor AtTCP8 is covalently modified by SUMO, showing that mutation of these sites abolishes sumoylation and impairs the protein's ability to rescue a tcp8 brassinosteroid signaling defect and activate target promoters. Parallel experiments reveal that class I TCP orthologs in the moss Physcomitrium patens are also sumoylated, suggesting a conserved post‑translational regulatory mechanism across vascular and non‑vascular plants.