The study generated a single‑cell transcriptomic atlas of tomato adventitious root development, revealing that vascular tissues retain high developmental potential and that the DOF11‑LEA3 regulatory axis drives this process. Cross‑species integration shows tomato AR‑initiating cells share transcriptional programs with woody dicots but not Arabidopsis, suggesting AR competence is an ancestral vascular identity module. These results highlight tomato as a more representative model for AR biology and provide targets for improving vegetative propagation.
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 study used chemically induced effector-triggered immunity combined with single-cell transcriptomics to map immune responses across all leaf cell types in Arabidopsis, revealing that while a core defense program is universally activated, individual cell types deploy distinct transcriptional modules. Functional assays showed that epidermis‑specific transcriptional regulators are essential for preventing pathogen penetration, indicating a spatial division of immune functions within the leaf.
Gene regulatory network analysis of somatic embryogenesis identifies morphogenic genes that increase maize transformation frequency
Authors: Renema, J., Luckicheva, S., Verwaerde, I., Aesaert, S., Coussens, G., De Block, J., Grones, C., Eekhout, T., De Rybel, B., Brew-Appiah, R. A. T., Bagley, C. A., Hoengenaert, L., Vandepoele, K., Pauwels, L.
The study co‑expressed BABY BOOM and WUSCHEL2 in maize embryos and used single‑cell transcriptomics to infer cell‑type‑specific gene regulatory networks underlying induced somatic embryogenesis. By prioritizing and functionally validating four novel transcription factors, the authors enhanced maize transformation efficiency and produced fertile transgenic plants.