Amazing stuff!
Showing posts with label botany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label botany. Show all posts
Friday, September 11, 2026
Tuesday, August 25, 2026
More evidence that plants are not passive and defenseless
Amazing stuff! There is much more than thorns to plant defenses!
"Dying [attacked] plants can protect their successors from the same fate
Plants might look like passive life forms, quietly enduring drought, disease or parasites. But they are actually great at fighting back. A new study reveals an intricate feedback system that allows cowpeas attacked by herbivores to protect future plants from the same fate.
Previous studies have documented how some plants ‘call for help’ when being eaten: When caterpillars start to chew on the leaves, they release a chemical into the air that attracts predators, like wasps, which then feed on the caterpillars. But scientists have now uncovered a more complex mechanism, one that triggers protective capabilities across plant generations.
“The major finding is that a mechanism under the soil can impact the response to predators,” ... “This has never been seen before.” ...
found that when attacked by insects called leafminers, cowpea plants—in addition to releasing an airborne chemical to attract wasps—also release chemicals called flavonoids into the soil from their roots. Those flavonoids, in turn, cultivate a particular community of soil bacteria, which influences the next plants to grow in that soil: They cause the new plants to trigger that airborne alarm system before they’re attacked, as a protective measure.
The finding can have direct implications for the development of green pest management ..."
From the highlights and abstract:
"Highlights
• Leaf herbivory leaves a persistent soil-borne defensive legacy
• Jasmonate-dependent flavonoids restructure the rhizosphere microbiome
• The rhizosphere microbiome acts as a soil-borne legacy for subsequent plants
• Soil-borne legacy reconfigures volatile emission and enhances parasitoid attraction
Summary
How organisms convert short-term stress into long-term defense is a key ecological question. Classic herbivore-induced plant volatiles recruit natural enemies but act briefly only in damaged tissues.
Here, we report that leaf herbivory establishes a persistent soil defensive legacy to help uninfested subsequent plants attract parasitoids.
During the conditioning phase, herbivory systemically activates jasmonate signaling, which reprograms root metabolism and promotes the exudation of specific flavonoids, notably daidzein and genistein.
These compounds selectively restructure the rhizosphere microbiome, enriching functionally specialized bacterial taxa that constitute the soil-borne legacy. During the feedback phase, these enriched rhizosphere bacteria, in turn, increase jasmonate signaling in succeeding plants, boosting emission of the key parasitoid-attracting volatile (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate in the absence of herbivory.
Together, our findings reveal plant-soil feedback as an active ecological process that extends the spatial and temporal reach of plant defenses, with broad implications for plant-enemy interactions and sustainable pest management."
Graphical abstract
Figure 1 Leaf herbivory attracts parasitoids via systemic jasmonate signaling-mediated plant-soil feedbacks
Grasses have doubled pathways to synthesize lignin and starch
Amazing stuff!
"... Some of this success stems from grasses’ turbocharged growth: The plants can produce both energy-rich starch and structurally supportive lignin through two different metabolic pathways apiece, allowing them to grow faster and taller than their competitors. But researchers never knew how and when these innovations sprouted.
In a new Science study, botanists analyzed the genomes of the grass family’s closest relatives to reveal the evolutionary history of grasses’ key innovations. They found that the doubled starch production pathway was truly unique to grasses, having resulted from a previously documented whole-genome duplication event that also instilled the plants with some of their other world-conquering traits. This duplication “ likely gave a competitive advantage to grasses to grow in open habitat, where a lot of plants would love to grow because of all the sun,” ...
By contrast, their sister groups had only one strategy to produce starch, restricting them to slow growth in the shade of their fast-rising relatives.
In addition, both grasses and related plants can also make lignin from two different precursor molecules, indicating that a separate gene duplication gave rise to the dual pathway before grasses split into their own lineage 100 million years ago. The researchers were able to track the specific genetic causes of the doubled route, potentially allowing them to introduce the mutation into other plants to help produce crops and feedstocks for bioenergy."
"One hundred million years ago, long before human intervention, ancestors of grasses, like wheat, rice and maize generated “bypasses” of chemical pathways that are used to create two critical compounds: lignin and starch. These more efficient pathways could explain why grass plants are so successful in nature and agriculture, according to a new paper recently published ...
Just as scientists use the chimpanzee’s genome as a comparison tool to study how humans evolved, Maeda’s group and their collaborators ... turned to one of the closest relatives of grasses, Joinvillea ascendens.
This long-leafed plant is found in wet forests of the South Pacific islands and grows much more slowly than many grasses. ..."
"... The researchers then mapped the genome of Joinvillea and three related species. Comparing the thousands of genes in these genomes revealed that, unlike grasses, Joinvillea has only one pathway to create starch.
“We knew that a common ancestor of all grasses doubled its gene content through a whole genome duplication,” ... “Some of the duplicated genes then enabled the evolution of an additional starch synthesis pathway, or a bypass route, which emerged in an early common ancestor of all grasses.”
As a result ... grasses are able to produce twice the amount of starch relative to Joinvillea and all other non-grass plants. ..."
From the editor's summary and abstract:
"Editor’s summary
Grasses include many economically important food crops and function as primary producers in diverse ecosystems. They also exhibit distinctive metabolic traits, such as the ability to synthesize starch in both plastids and cytosol and the synthesis of lignin from both phenylalanine and tyrosine.
However, the evolutionary origin of these traits has been unclear.
Takeda-Kimura et al. sequenced the genomes from grass sister clades and found that although some cytosolic starch synthesis genes emerged within grasses, a key plastid membrane transporter predates their evolution.
An earlier tandem duplication event predating a grass-specific whole-genome duplication gave rise to the bifunctional phenylalanine/tyrosine ammonia lyase, enabling dual lignin biosynthesis in grasses. ...
Structured Abstract
INTRODUCTION
The grass family (Poaceae) includes foundational primary producers in global ecosystems and economically important crops. Rice, wheat, and maize account for more than 40% of caloric intake for humans, and sugarcane, sorghum, and bamboo make abundant sugars and lignocellulosic biomass for renewable bioenergy and biomaterial production. Their genome assemblies have advanced our understanding of critical traits in agriculturally and ecologically important grass species. However, we still lack chromosomal assemblies for their closest relatives, which diverged from grass progenitors more than 100 million years ago, before the rho whole-genome duplication (ρWGD) in the ancestor of all grasses. This gap limits our understanding of how gene and genome duplications contributed to evolutionary innovations that define the grass lineage.
RATIONALE
This study generated reference-quality genomes for Joinvillea ascendens and Ecdeiocolea monostachya, which represent the sister lineage to all grasses, along with Pharus latifolius and Typha latifolia, which represent sister lineages to core grasses and all other members of the order Poales, respectively. Using these new genomic resources, we traced the evolutionary history of two distinctive metabolic traits of grasses: dual starch and lignin biosynthetic pathways. These grass-specific metabolic innovations contribute to the starch-rich endosperm of cereals and substantial lignin deposition in the vasculatures and fibers of grasses.
RESULTS
In this study, the new high-quality genome assemblies and annotations enabled comparative genomic analyses to place the timing of the ρWGD event just after the divergence of ancestral lineages leading to the grasses and their sister clade, including Joinvilleaceae and Ecdeiocoleaceae. Phylogenetic and molecular evolutionary analyses of more than 20 gene families involved in starch biosynthesis across many Poaceae and Poales species revealed that ρWGD contributed to the duplication of several of these genes, which now support cytosolic starch biosynthesis in grass endosperms. By contrast, genome comparisons and biochemical analyses of the lignin biosynthesis pathway revealed that an earlier tandem duplication of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) gave rise to phenylalanine/tyrosine ammonia lyase (PTAL) before the ρWGD and the origin of grasses, enabling grasses to synthesize lignin and other phenylpropanoid compounds from two aromatic amino acid precursors, phenylalanine and tyrosine. Precise determination of the timing of the plant PTAL evolution, combined with site-directed mutagenesis and x-ray crystal structural analyses, further identified two key residues, Ile112 and His140, that are responsible for the neofunctionalization of plant PAL into PTAL, providing a promising gene-editing strategy to enhance diverse phenylpropanoid production in plants.
CONCLUSION
Our integrated genomic, biochemical, and structural analyses, supported by robust phylogenetic resolution of grasses and their relatives, have unveiled the evolutionary history and molecular basis of key metabolic innovations predating the emergence of grasses. Our findings highlight critical roles for both WGDs and tandem gene duplications as drivers of evolutionary innovation. The nonmodel, noncrop Poales reference genomes generated for this study now offer valuable resources for dissecting the diverse and complex traits that contribute to the ecological and economic importance of grasses. The evolutionary basis of grass-specific traits will inform efforts to conserve grass-dominated ecosystems and accelerate breeding and engineering of cereals and other grass crops for sustainable production of food, feed, bioenergy, and biomaterials."
Molecular “bypasses” improve grass plants’s synthesis of lignin and starch, laying the early groundwork for evolutionary success (original news release)
Grass plant ancestors evolved metabolic pathway to ecological success (original news release)
Genomes of Poaceae sisters reveal key metabolic innovations preceding the evolution of grasses (preprint, open access, published already in December 2024 and never updated recently)
Metabolic innovations that predate the origin of grasses.
Fig. 1: Sequencing genomes of Poaceae sisters to trace the evolutionary history of grass metabolic innovations.
Fig. 2. Alteration of starch and fatty acid biosynthesis during the grass evolution.
Sunday, July 12, 2026
Engineered in One Plant, Three Kingdoms, Five natural psychedelics
Good news!
"... Researchers ... have now managed to bring together in a single organism five psychedelic substances that in nature are scattered across the tree of life.
After uncovering how plants naturally produce one of the best-known psychedelic compounds, DMT, they were able to reengineer that process step by step inside a model plant – along with four other psychedelics. The result is what amounts to a biological factory that could, in the future, be used to simultaneously produce multiple psychedelic molecules, including some that do not naturally occur in plants. ..."
From the abstract:
"Psychedelic indolethylamines with therapeutic potential are naturally produced in plants, fungi, and animals.
Here, we elucidated the complete N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) biosynthetic pathway in hallucinogenic plant species traditionally used in shamanic rituals for spiritual healing.
Leveraging the similarities in their chemical structures, we reconstructed in one plant assay the full biosynthetic pathways of five renowned natural psychedelics; psilocin and psilocybin found in mushrooms, DMT from plants, and bufotenin and 5-methoxy-DMT secreted by the Sonoran Desert toad.
We further engineered halogenated analogs of these molecules, which do not naturally occur in plants and exhibit prospective therapeutic potential for psychiatric conditions.
Blending catalytic functions across the tree of life, coupled with metabolic engineering guided by rational protein design of mutant enzymes, enabled substantially more efficient in planta production of the indolethylamine components.
This work establishes a versatile platform for concurrent biosynthesis and diversification of psychoactive indolethylamines, paving the way for their production in plants."
Fig. 3. Reconstruction of the N,N-dimethyl-tryptamine biosynthetic pathway.
Fig. 5. Metabolic engineering strategy for complete reconstruction of psychedelic indolethylamine biosynthetic pathways in N. benthamiana.
Saturday, July 11, 2026
Studying grass grow
Amazing stuff!
"Watching grass grow gets a bad name—studying how grass grows is anything but boring. Grasses include many of our most critical food sources including wheat, rice, and corn. And until recently, nobody was quite sure what factors caused these plants to grow tall.
In a new study, a team of researchers revealed that temperature, not light, determines when grass stems harden, allowing for vertical growth.
To monitor growth, the scientists merged a gene important for the development of the secondary cell wall—the structure that causes grass stems to become rigid—with the gene that makes fireflies glow.
Then, they exposed the plant to a variety of light and temperature conditions and watched how they responded with a time-lapse camera. ...
Neither daylight nor any sort of internal clock had an impact on grass growth. But when the biologists varied the temperature, their grasses responded. In cooler conditions, plants started slowly before rapidly growing; in the heat, grass growth initially spiked but soon dropped to a slower pace.
In addition, pulses of warmth in cool temperatures prompted the greatest growth rates, while cold blasts in the heat ground growth to nearly a halt.
What the study might mean for crop growth, including in the context of climate change, remains unknown. Nevertheless, the findings present new insights into the unexpectedly fascinating process of how grass grows. ..."
From the highlights and abstract:
"Highlights
• Thermocycles, not light or the circadian clock, drive CESA8 rhythms
• CESA8 expression increases during cool nights and declines during warm days
• Secondary-wall gene expression is coordinated with stem elongation
• Warm and cold pulses trigger opposing responses, explained by an incoherent feedforward loop model
Summary
Secondary cell wall thickening is essential for plant structural development, providing the mechanical strength and rigidity required for upright growth. However, direct observation of this process in its endogenous developmental context within living plants has remained limited.
Cellulose, the predominant component of secondary walls and the most abundant biopolymer on Earth, is synthesized at the plasma membrane by complexes containing CELLULOSE SYNTHASE A (CESA) proteins.
Despite its central role, the precise timing and regulation of cellulose deposition during plant development remain unclear.
To address this gap, we developed a real-time bioluminescence imaging system in the model grass Brachypodium distachyon using a luciferase transcriptional reporter driven by the CESA8 cis-regulatory region.
Bioluminescence imaging revealed a consistent spatial pattern of CESA8 expression within elongating internodes, coinciding with regions undergoing secondary wall deposition and progressive increases in cellulose crystallinity. Time-lapse imaging showed that expression follows a robust daily rhythm driven by temperature cycles, independent of light or endogenous circadian signals. Temperature-pulse experiments uncovered rapid, transient inverse responses that were accurately predicted by a mathematical model based on an incoherent feedforward loop.
CESA8 expression correlated strongly with stem elongation, linking structural reinforcement with temperature-driven shoot growth in grasses."
Grasses Provide Most of the World’s Calories—But We’re Only Now Starting to Learn How They Grow (original news release) "UMass Amherst researchers devise technique to show grasses don’t grow like most other plants"
Temperature signals drive grass secondary cell wall thickening (partial public access)
Graphical abstract
Tuesday, June 02, 2026
Plants smell growth rates of other plants and adopt their own growth
Amazing stuff!
"All plants constantly release volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, into the air ... But a new study suggests that healthy plants may also be sniffing out the competition.
Researchers tested three barley varieties with different growth speeds: a slower-growing cultivar ... an intermediate grower ... and a fast-growing one named ... Over 25 days, the team exposed plants to each other’s VOCs and tracked both physical growth and changes in gene activity.
Based on the type of airborne chemicals released by the specimens nearby, the plants grew more or less aggressively. Barley exposed to scents from fast growers bulked up their biomass, while plants surrounded by slower-growing neighbors dialed themselves back too. Being around slower growers boosted stress response pathways, while fast-growing neighbors triggered genes involved in cell growth and DNA replication. ..."
From the abstract:
"Plants continuously emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can influence the physiology and behavior of neighboring plants. While the ecological role of stress-induced VOCs is well established, the function of constitutive VOCs released by undamaged plants in mediating plant-plant interactions remains less understood.
Here, we demonstrate that barley plants can detect the growth rate of undamaged conspecific neighbors through constitutive VOCs and respond by modulating their growth-defense trade-off accordingly.
Exposure to volatiles from cultivars with contrasting growth (slow or fast) triggered distinct shifts in biomass accumulation and gene expression in receiver plants, whereas VOCs from cultivars with similar growth rates had negligible effects.
Transcriptomic analysis revealed cultivar-specific transcriptional reprogramming of growth- and defense-related pathways, suggesting that constitutive VOCs convey information about emitter identity and competitive vigour that receiver plants use to adaptively reallocate resources and prime stress responses in anticipation of competition. These findings uncover a previously unrecognized role of constitutive VOCs as reliable cues of emitter identity and vigor, mediating adaptive responses in neighboring plants under competitive scenarios."
Friday, May 29, 2026
How bean plants use chemicals to attract wasps for help when hungry caterpillars attack
Amazing stuff!
"... The plant sends out a chemical distress signal that summons predatory wasps to its aid. ..."
"... When caterpillars chomp the leaves of bean plants, these plants release gases that lure predatory wasps. The wasps prey on the caterpillars, saving the plants from further destruction. ...
This result helps explain a previous study by this team that first identified the biochemical pathway behind this defense mechanism. These results also showcase how the tiny actions of a single protein can affect the behavior of wasps and caterpillars, and in turn, protect the health of the plant. ..."
From the abstract:
"Plants deploy direct and indirect defenses in response to insect herbivory. The specific antiherbivore responses involve cell surface immune receptors that recognize herbivore-associated molecular patterns (HAMPs), yet the ecological relevance of this molecular interplay in natural settings remains unexplored.
Here, we demonstrate with laboratory and field experimentation in Mexico that the inceptin receptor (INR) in the leaves of common bean orchestrates a tritrophic interaction upon recognition of inceptin, a HAMP in caterpillar oral secretions. Near-isogenic lines with a naturally occurring null mutation in INR revealed that inceptin recognition does not only amplify the wound response but activates an herbivore-specific immune pathway to trigger the emission of a distinctive volatile blend that recruits predatory wasps to effectively remove caterpillars from the plants.
These findings provide a definitive molecular-to-ecological link, revealing how a single immune receptor mediates ecologically relevant plant-insect-predator interactions in nature."
Sunday, April 26, 2026
China: Highway to flower garden
On my latest visit to Zhengzhou, Henan province, China I noticed that a lot of the many highway overpasses in this city were decorated with flowers along the left and right edge of the highway.
It looked very nice like a flower garden!
Friday, April 24, 2026
Plant seeds can actually sense the sound of rain
Amazing stuff! The sound of rain! Let it rain, let it rain!
"MIT engineers found that plant seeds can actually sense the sound of rain, with rice seeds germinating 30% to 40% faster when exposed to the vibrations of falling water droplets."
"... In experiments with rice seeds, the team found that the sound of falling droplets effectively shook the seeds out of a dormant state, stimulating them to germinate at a faster rate compared with seeds that were not exposed to the same sound vibrations. ..."
"... the first direct evidence that plant seeds and seedlings can sense sounds in nature. Their experiments involved rice seeds that they submerged in shallow water. Rice can germinate in both soil and shallow water. The researchers suspect that many similar seed types may also respond to the sound of rain. ...
They found that when a raindrop hits the surface of a puddle or the ground, it generates a sound wave that makes the surroundings vibrate, including any shallowly submerged seeds. These vibrations can be strong enough to dislodge a seed’s “statoliths,” which are tiny gravity-sensing organelles within certain cells of a seed. When these statoliths are jostled, their movement is a signal for seeds and seedlings to grow and sprout. ..."
From the abstract:
"The ability of natural environmental sound to stimulate seeds and seedlings sufficiently to foster growth has not been previously demonstrated or quantified.
To study this, rain sound is a logical starting point. Rain produces extremely high amplitude sound pressure with commensurate particle displacements in the upper soil, puddles and wetlands where many plant seeds germinate.
Experiments were conducted with controlled rain drops impacting soil and shallow water puddles containing submerged seeds of rice (oryza sativa). Germination rates were measured as the peak sound pressure of drop impact was varied. The displacements of micro-meter-scale statoliths relative to the structure of specialized seed cells that sense gravitational direction were estimated as a function of the controlled rain sound forcing.
The results here indicate rice and related seed types can sense the sound of rain impacting the soil or water surface above them and respond by accelerating germination at depths where impulsive rain sound is sufficiently intense to intermittently shake statoliths from contact with cell membrane receptors and trigger gravitropic growth mechanisms.
The ability to perceive rain sound and respond with accelerated germination is found to be roughly limited to the relatively shallow depths that are also beneficial to seedling survival."
Plants can sense the sound of rain, a new study finds (original news release) "Experiments by MIT engineers show rice seeds sprout faster to the sound of rain."
Seeds accelerate germination at beneficial planting depths by sensing the sound of rain (open access)
Tuesday, April 07, 2026
Engineered tobacco plant can produce five psychedelics, including psilocybin and DMT
Amazing stuff! What are you smoking? What's growing in your flower pot or garden? 😊
"... The new study focused on engineering plants to produce five major natural psychedelics: DMT, psilocin, psilocybin, bufotenin, and 5-MeO-DMT. They first had to identify and characterize the key biosynthetic enzymes from certain plants, fungi, and the Sonoran Desert toad and combine enzymes from different species to reconstruct entire biosynthetic pathways. They then used genetic engineering to introduce these enzymes into a type of tobacco plant (Nicotiana benthamiana), which was chosen because it is easily cultivated and produces tryptophan.
After the genes required for production of the compounds were identified, they were introduced to the plant by a process called agroinfiltration, where plant leaves are injected with a suspension of bacterium to induce the expression of genes. The team used AlphaFold3, an AI model that predicts 3D structures and interactions of molecules, to guide their design of a mutant protein that substantially enhanced indolethylamine production by improving efficiency of the enzymes needed to produce it. ..."
Fig. 5. Metabolic engineering strategy for complete reconstruction of psychedelic indolethylamine biosynthetic pathways in N. benthamiana.
Friday, March 27, 2026
Scientists uncover two million ancient DNA switches controlling plant genes
Amazing stuff!
"The study ... reveals that the power of plant genomes lies not only in their protein-coding genes, but also in ancient regulatory DNA sequences that control where, when and how strongly to turn on gene expression. ...
Scientists have long searched for similar ancient regulatory sequences in plants, but with limited success. Now, The Conservatory Project team has revealed the hidden ancient regulatory sequences that have been hiding in plain sight. ...
Plant genes are continually shuffling themselves around, which makes the links between genes and their master switches extremely hard to spot. ...
They identified over two million ancient gene master switches, which control gene expression across 284 plant species from 73 plant families. This includes DNA switches that pre-date the emergence of flowering plants over 300 million years ago. ..."
From the abstract:
"Developmental gene function is often conserved over deep time, but cis-regulatory sequence conservation is difficult to identify. Rapid sequence turnover, paleopolyploidy, structural variation, and limited phylogenomic sampling have impeded conserved non-coding sequence (CNS) discovery.
Using Conservatory, an algorithm that leverages microsynteny and iterative alignments to map CNS-gene associations over evolution, we uncovered ~2.3 million CNSs, including over 3,000 predating angiosperms, from 284 plant species spanning 300 million years of diversification.
Ancient CNSs were enriched near developmental regulators, and mutating CNSs near HOMEOBOX genes produced strong phenotypes.
Tracing CNS evolution uncovered key principles: CNS spacing varies, but order is conserved; genomic rearrangements form new CNS-gene associations; and ancient CNSs are preferentially retained among paralogs, but are often lost as cohorts or evolve into lineage-specific CNSs."
A deep-time landscape of plant cis-regulatory sequence evolution (no public access)
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Plants that touch each other are more resilient to stress
Amazing stuff!
"New research has found when plant leaves physically touch each other, they seem to form a biological signalling network to warn each other about the upcoming stress. This can boost their resilience to withstand intense light, which is a common environmental challenge. ..."
From the abstract:
"Plants use sophisticated signaling networks to communicate with each other. While this process is thought to support the overall health and resilience of plant communities, it could also reflect eavesdropping between plants used for competition.
Here we reveal that plants that physically touch each other aboveground are more resilient to excess light stress, and that this phenomenon is dependent on the ability of plants to exchange above ground electric and H2O2 signals with each other. Using a mutant that is unable to transfer Ca2+/reactive oxygen species (ROS) signals but can transfer electric signals (hpca1), as a mediator/connector between different plants, we further separate electric from Ca2+/ROS plant-to-plant signals and transcriptional landscapes, and show that the transfer of Ca2+/ROS signals, as well as the function of several Ca2+/ROS-dependent transcripts, is required for excess light stress acclimation.
Our study reveals that plants that live together and physically touch each other establish an above ground community-wide signaling network that enhances their collective resilience to stress."
Fig. 1 Plants that touch each other aboveground are more resilient to excess light stress.
Monday, January 19, 2026
New study overturns long-held model of how plants coordinate immune responses
Amazing stuff!
"... One way that plants protect themselves against pathogens is with a response system called systemic acquired resistance (SAR), in which cells in infected tissues signal to cells further away to protect themselves. Researchers knew that plant cells used molecules like salicylic acid to communicate these instructions, but the early signaling mechanisms and factors involved in initiating this response remained a mystery.
Now, researchers ... demonstrated that hormones called jasmonates, metabolites associated with wound signaling, trigger early warnings after infection and are vital to SAR. ...
“Whereas salicylic acid accumulation can take more than 24 hours, the jasmonate-dependent signal appeared within three to four hours of infection, moving rapidly through the plant’s epidermal and vascular tissues to the uninfected leaves. It is a fundamental shift in our understanding of how plant immunity works,” ...
To further explore the role of jasmonates in SAR as part of the present study, the team created a reporter by fusing a gene that’s expressed early in SAR to luciferase.
Using this reporter, the team confirmed that this gene is expressed three hours after they infected leaves with a plant pathogen. They observed that expression of this same gene turns on in nearby leaves four hours after the infection of the first leaf, supporting its early role in systemic responses. ..."
"Plants mobilise their immune defences far earlier than scientists have believed for decades—and through a previously overlooked early signalling mechanism ..."
From the abstract:
"Successful recognition of pathogen effectors by plant disease resistance proteins, or effector-triggered immunity (ETI), contains the invading pathogen through localized hypersensitive cell death. ETI also activates long-range signalling to establish broad-spectrum systemic acquired resistance (SAR).
Here we describe a sensitive luciferase (LUC) reporter that captures the spatial–temporal dynamics of SAR signal generation, propagation and establishment in systemic responding leaves following ETI. JASMONATE-INDUCED SYSTEMIC SIGNAL 1 (JISS1) encodes an endoplasmic-reticulum-localized protein of unknown function. JISS1::LUC captured very early ETI-elicited SAR signalling, which surprisingly was not affected by classical SAR mutants but was dependent on calcium and was also wound responsive.
Both jasmonate biosynthesis and perception mutants abolished JISS1::LUC signalling and SAR to Pseudomonas syringae.
Furthermore, we discovered that ETI initiated jasmonate-dependent systemic surface electrical potentials. These surface potentials were dependent on both glutamate receptors and JISS1, despite neither JISS1 loss-of-function nor glutamate receptor mutants altering SAR to Pseudomonas syringae.
We thus demonstrate that jasmonate signalling, usually associated with antagonism of defence against biotrophs, is crucial to the rapid initiation and establishment of SAR systemic defence responses (including the activation of systemic surface potentials) and that JISS1::LUC serves as a reporter to further dissect these pathways."
New study overturns long-held model of how plants coordinate immune responses (original news release) "University of Warwick researchers discover rapid, jasmonate-driven, early immune response in plants using breakthrough live-imaging tool."
Fig. 5: Systemic electric signal propagation is a general feature of ETI activation.
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Microbes in tree bark remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere
As I have said on my blog several times before plant some more trees if you are really concerned with greenhouse gases and climate change!
Remember, global warming is a hoax and climate change is a religion! One can safely assume that until recently the microbiota living on tree bark and their effect on climate was unknown! What little we still know about such a complex natural phenomenon like climate (Corollary: climate models are largely junk)!
"... New research shows that microbes living in tree bark also help clean the air by taking up vast amounts of other climate-active gases too.
The study ... sampled the bark of 8 tree species in freshwater wetland, coastal and upland forest biomes of eastern Australian to determine the microbial species present and how they consumed and produced key gases. ..."
From the abstract of the Perspective:
"Ecosystems exchange gases with the atmosphere, influencing its chemical composition and temperature. Trace gases are present at very low concentrations in the atmosphere but have important effects.
For decades, soil was thought to be the only surface that exchanges trace gases with the atmosphere. ...
Tree bark biogeochemistry (life-mediated chemical cycling and exchange between air, water, and land) has been almost completely ignored, despite bark having a global surface area of ~143 million km2, almost as large as the global land surface. ... Leung et al. report that bark microbes process methane, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide, showing that bark is an important component of global trace gas dynamics."
From the editor's summary and abstract:
"Editor’s summary
Tree trunks comprise a huge area of habitat for metabolically active microorganisms. Not only do the trunks provide a substrate for many epiphytic species, but tree bark also shelters specific communities of bacteria. Leung et al. sampled the bark of several eastern Australian trees to investigate the species present and their metabolic capacities. Depending on locality, prevailing conditions, and species and their microbiota, tree trunk communities can be net producers or consumers of climate active gases. While planning a planting scheme, it is therefore important to assess specific settings for the potential role that trees can play, through their trunk communities, in climate mitigation ...
Structured Abstract
INTRODUCTION
The global surface area of tree bark is similar to that of terrestrial Earth. These substantial tree surfaces are increasingly recognized for mediating the exchange of atmospheric gases along the soil-tree-atmosphere continuum. They also represent a potential habitat for microorganisms, with recent metabarcoding studies indicating a possible role for bark microbes in the cycling of methane (CH4). However, a general understanding of the metabolism and ecosystem roles of these potentially globally pervasive microbiota remains lacking.
RATIONALE
At the soil-atmosphere interface, we predicted that tree bark microbiota use diverse gas substrates to sustain growth and in turn may mediate an important role in global atmospheric gas cycling. However, previous metabarcoding approaches have only provided limited and indirect inference for the lifestyle of bark microorganisms. Numerous traits, such as microbial oxidation of the climate-active gases hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO), cannot be reliably predicted by taxonomic affiliation. A functional understanding of the bark microbiota requires direct evidence from genomic characterization and functional validation. Here we integrated genome-resolved metagenomic analysis with in situ and ex situ biogeochemical assays to study the capabilities, metabolism, and ecosystem importance of bark microbiota in Australian forests.
RESULTS
We examined bark microbiota of eight prevalent Australian tree species, spanning freshwater wetland, coastal, and upland forest biomes.
All tree species were found to harbor abundant endophytic microbial populations, estimated at up to 6 trillion cells per square meter of bark.
Gene-centric and genome-resolved metagenomics revealed that bark microbial communities were distinct from surrounding soils and waters and included diverse metabolically flexible gas cycling and facultatively anaerobic bacteria. Predominant bacteria were predicted to consume hydrogen through aerobic respiration and fermentatively produce this gas during hypoxia.
Bacteria encoding enzymes for aerobic and anaerobic metabolism of other gases, including CO, CH4, and volatile organic compounds, were also abundant, with methanogenic archaea present in some wetland trees.
Consistently, microcosm assays showed that bark microorganisms aerobically consume CH4, H2, and CO but switched to production of these gases under anoxia.
In situ measurements further showed that fluxes of multiple climate-active gases occur at tree bark surfaces. In particular, net H2 uptake was consistently observed across all tree species and bark heights, indicating that bark may be an overlooked H2 sink, where robust microbial activity could account for annual removal of atmospheric H2 at the teragram scale.
CONCLUSION
Our results provided genome-resolved insights into the abundant bark microbiota, revealing their ability to flexibly metabolize gases and adapt to substrate and redox conditions within trees.
Their activities substantially modulate fluxes of major climate-active gases, such as CH4, and the often-overlooked indirect greenhouse gases H2, CO, and volatile organic compounds.
Bark microbiota may contribute to the climate benefits of trees by removing multiple climate-active gases, although their metabolic flexibility indicates a potential to switch to a source, depending upon environmental conditions. Collectively, these results suggest that trees and their microbiota contribute to regulating global atmospheric cycles and should be considered in biogeochemical models, forest management, and conservation efforts."
Tree bark microbes for climate management (Perspective, no public access)
Bark microbiota modulate climate-active gas fluxes in Australian forests (no public access)
Bark microbiota modulate climate-active gas fluxes in Australian forests
Wednesday, January 07, 2026
Study overturns long-held model of how plants coordinate immune responses
Amazing stuff!
"Plants mobilize their immune defenses far earlier than scientists have believed for decades—and through a previously overlooked early signaling mechanism—according to a new study ...
When attacked, plants quickly initiate defense responses at the site of challenge, but they can also activate immune responses in distant, not yet infected tissues to protect the rest of the plant, a process known as Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR).
For decades, SAR has been understood to rely on the signaling molecule salicylic acid—supported by N-hydroxypipecolic acid—to execute and maintain long-lasting immune protection throughout the plant. These molecules are synthesized following infection and gradually accumulate in distant uninfected tissues.
The ... team now shows that before this salicylic acid-centered defense is established, plants deploy a much faster communication system: a wave of jasmonate-dependent immune signals that spreads through the plant within just a few hours, initiating SAR well before classical measures of activated SAR. ..."
"... To uncover this hidden early SAR phase, the researchers developed a novel jasmonate-linked SAR reporter, JISS1:LUC, which functions as a molecular tracker for this early immune activation. This tool allowed them to visualise immune signals moving out of infected leaves and across into uninfected leaves in real time.
This very early signalling phase has remained hidden until now because most traditional approaches detect immune responses during or after systemic defences are fully established, measuring classical molecular markers or SA itself, well after these jasmonate-driven signals are developed.
The results point to a multi-phase SAR strategy. “Jasmonates sound the alarm,” ... “They coordinate a fast, mobile immune signal, alerting the entire plant that trouble is coming. Classic signalling compounds such as salicylic acid and N-hydroxypipecolic acid then strengthen and stabilises these defences to ensure long-lasting protection.”
This study showed that even in plants unable to produce or perceive salicylic acid, the early wave of signalling occurred — but SAR disappeared when jasmonate biosynthesis was disrupted. Those plants lacking jasmonate signalling mounted normal local immune responses to infection, but failed to protect distant leaves, making them vulnerable to secondary infections. ..."
From the abstract:
"Successful recognition of pathogen effectors by plant disease resistance proteins, or effector-triggered immunity (ETI), contains the invading pathogen through localized hypersensitive cell death. ETI also activates long-range signalling to establish broad-spectrum systemic acquired resistance (SAR).
Here we describe a sensitive luciferase (LUC) reporter that captures the spatial–temporal dynamics of SAR signal generation, propagation and establishment in systemic responding leaves following ETI.
JASMONATE-INDUCED SYSTEMIC SIGNAL 1 (JISS1) encodes an endoplasmic-reticulum-localized protein of unknown function. JISS1::LUC captured very early ETI-elicited SAR signalling, which surprisingly was not affected by classical SAR mutants but was dependent on calcium and was also wound responsive.
Both jasmonate biosynthesis and perception mutants abolished JISS1::LUC signalling and SAR to Pseudomonas syringae.
Furthermore, we discovered that ETI initiated jasmonate-dependent systemic surface electrical potentials. These surface potentials were dependent on both glutamate receptors and JISS1, despite neither JISS1 loss-of-function nor glutamate receptor mutants altering SAR to Pseudomonas syringae.
We thus demonstrate that jasmonate signalling, usually associated with antagonism of defence against biotrophs, is crucial to the rapid initiation and establishment of SAR systemic defence responses (including the activation of systemic surface potentials) and that JISS1::LUC serves as a reporter to further dissect these pathways."
New study overturns long-held model of how plants coordinate immune responses (original news release) "University of Warwick researchers discover rapid, jasmonate-driven, early immune response in plants using breakthrough live-imaging tool."
Rapid local and systemic jasmonate signalling drives the initiation and establishment of plant systemic immunity (open access)
Fig. 1: JISS1 expression is induced systemically by ETI. [Looks like fireworks to me]
Fig. 2: JISS1::LUC is activated by the jasmonate signalling pathway but not classical SAR elicitors.
Sunday, January 04, 2026
Origins of THC, CBD and CBC in cannabis revealed by resurrecting extinct ancestral enzymes active millions of years ago
Amazing stuff! Reconstructing extinct enzymes could have wide ranging applications in the future.
"... Researchers ... have experimentally demonstrated for the first time how cannabis acquired the ability to produce these cannabinoids. In the process, they also developed enzymes that show promise for the biotechnological production of cannabinoids for medicinal applications. ...
the researchers reconstructed extinct enzymes that were active millions of years ago in ancestors of the cannabis plant. In cannabis, enzymes play a key role in the production of cannabinoids—bioactive compounds with, among other things, medicinal potential. ..."
"... The researchers used a technique known as ancestral sequence reconstruction. Based on DNA from modern plants, this method makes it possible to infer what enzymes looked like millions of years ago. These ‘ancestral enzymes’ were then resurrected in the laboratory and experimentally tested. The study provides the first experimental evidence that the biosynthesis of cannabinoids such as THC originated within a relatively recent ancestor of cannabis and subsequently became increasingly refined. ..."
From the abstract:
"Cannabinoids, such as tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), cannabidiolic acid (CBDA) and cannabichromenic acid (CBCA), are bioactive and medicinally relevant compounds found in the cannabis plant (Cannabis sativa L.).
These three compounds are synthesised from a single precursor, cannabigerolic acid (CBGA), through regioselective reactions catalysed by different cannabinoid oxidocyclase enzymes. Despite the importance of cannabinoid oxidocyclases for determining cannabis chemotype and properties, the functional evolution and molecular mechanism of this enzyme family remain poorly understood.
To address this gap, we combined ancestral sequence reconstruction and heterologous expression to resurrect and functionally characterise three ancestral cannabinoid oxidocyclases.
Results showed that the ability to metabolise CBGA originated in a recent ancestor of cannabis and that early cannabinoid oxidocyclases were promiscuous enzymes producing all three THCA, CBDA and CBCA.
Gene duplication and diversification later facilitated enzyme sub functionalisation, leading to extant, highly-specialised THCA and CBDA synthases.
Through rational engineering of these ancestors, we designed hybrid enzymes which allowed identifying key amino acid mutations underlying the functional evolution of cannabinoid oxidocyclases.
Ancestral and hybrid enzymes also displayed unique activities and proved to be easier to produce heterologously than their extant counterparts.
Overall, this study contributes to understanding the origin, evolution and molecular mechanism of cannabinoid oxidocyclases, which opens new perspectives for breeding, biotechnological and medicinal applications."
Origins of THC, CBD and CBC in cannabis revealed (original news release) "Where do the well-known cannabis compounds THC, CBD and CBC come from? Researchers ... have experimentally demonstrated for the first time how cannabis acquired the ability to produce these cannabinoids. In the process, they also developed enzymes that show promise for the biotechnological production of cannabinoids for medicinal applications."
Resurrected Ancestral Cannabis Enzymes Unveil the Origin and Functional Evolution of Cannabinoid Synthases (open access)
Fig. 5 Major modifications in the substrate binding region of ancestral and hybrid cannabinoid oxidocyclases.
Saturday, December 27, 2025
PubPlant: An online resource for sequenced and published plant genomes
Amazing stuff!
"... developed PubPlant: a bioinformatics tool that promises to be the new "Google Maps" of plant DNA. This open-access, monthly-updated database centralizes and organizes the growing mountain of plant genomic information, allowing scientists, breeders, and biotechnologists to navigate—literally—through genomes with greater ease and precision. They can now leverage the “GPS” that takes them to the specific region of plant DNA where work must be done to breed a particular agronomic or nutritional trait. ...
Genomic Boom: Exponential Growth in Plant Genome Sequencing
Since the complete plant genome of Arabidopsis thaliana—a model species in plant biology, equivalent to the lab mouse in biomedical research—was published in 2000, the field of plant genomics has expanded at an unprecedented pace.
In the following 20 years, researchers sequenced 500 plant species. Then, in just two years between 2020 and 2022, they sequenced another 500—what once took two decades achieved in a fraction of the time.
In the following 20 years, researchers sequenced 500 plant species. Then, in just two years between 2020 and 2022, they sequenced another 500—what once took two decades achieved in a fraction of the time.
In 2024, the pace quickened further: over 500 new genomes were published in a single year, 370 of which belonged to species that had never been sequenced before. This acceleration has been possible thanks to advances in third-generation sequencing technologies, greater international collaboration, and the reduction of what were once enormous costs. ..."
"Advances in next-generation sequencing technologies over the last decade have substantially reduced the cost and effort required to sequence plant genomes. Whereas early efforts focused primarily on economically important crops and model species, attention has now turned to a broader range of plants, including those with larger and more complex genomes.
In 2024, the genomes of 500 plant species were published, including 370 sequenced for the first time.
Tracking and providing access to published plant genomes (now covering more than 1800 species) is an invaluable service for plant researchers.
PubPlant is an online resource that serves this purpose by cataloging published plant genome sequences and offering multiple visualizations ...
It includes a chronology of genome publications, and cladograms to display the phylogenetic relationships among the sequenced plants.
An overview diagram for seed plants highlights taxonomic orders and families with sequenced species and reveals those that have been overlooked thus far. As a use case for PubPlant, we evaluated the status of sequenced food crops.
We found that the five plant families featuring the most food crops were those containing the most sequenced plant species."
In 2024, the genomes of 500 plant species were published, including 370 sequenced for the first time.
Tracking and providing access to published plant genomes (now covering more than 1800 species) is an invaluable service for plant researchers.
PubPlant is an online resource that serves this purpose by cataloging published plant genome sequences and offering multiple visualizations ...
It includes a chronology of genome publications, and cladograms to display the phylogenetic relationships among the sequenced plants.
An overview diagram for seed plants highlights taxonomic orders and families with sequenced species and reveals those that have been overlooked thus far. As a use case for PubPlant, we evaluated the status of sequenced food crops.
We found that the five plant families featuring the most food crops were those containing the most sequenced plant species."
- light green bars show the number of plant species having their genome published at least once
- green bars refer to genomes which have been published at least twice and dark green bars to genomes published three or more times
Figure 3. Cladogram view of plant species with sequenced genomes in PubPlant, showing the order Sapindales as an example. The cladogram view goes beyond the taxonomic rank of family, also showing subfamilies and species with sequenced genomes.
Friday, December 12, 2025
Heat-seeking beetles drawn to plants that glow in infrared
Amazing stuff!
Unfortunately, Google and Bing did not find any image of the antennae of these beetles! Very disappointing in the age of AI! I have also looked at least at half a dozen different articles about this subject, but none of the articles had any such images.
"To attract their pollinators, plants have long produced vivid flowers—but the [plants were not] always so colorful. Long before flowers arose and the first bees and butterflies flitted about, palmlike plants called cycads offered a different kind of lure to insects: cones that heat up to act as thermal beacons to their beetle pollinators.
Now, scientists have discovered that beetles detect these beacons with tiny infrared sensors in their antennae. ... that infrared radiation attracts these beetle pollinators.
Plants have evolved the ability to produce heat about a dozen times, always in their reproductive structures. The heat can be considerable. To attract pollinators in late winter, the eastern skunk cabbage raises its temperature by more than 30°C. Naomi Pierce, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, recalls seeing cycads at night for the first time with an infrared camera. ..."
From the editor's summary and abstract:
"Editor’s summary
Plants have evolved an astonishing repertoire of signals to lure pollinators. Although color and scent are well-established pollination signals, some plants also produce heat. Valencia-Montoya et al. discovered that plant-produced heat is an early pollination signal and describe the molecular basis of both heat generation in cycads and heat sensing in beetle antennae (see the Perspective by Glover and Webb). By integrating detailed molecular analysis with field documentation of pollination, this study reveals an ancient sensory channel in plant-pollinator communication and contributes to elucidating the early evolution of pollination. ...
Abstract
Color and scent are well-known pollinator cues. Some plants also produce heat, but its role remains unclear.
Here, we report that plant-generated thermal infrared radiation serves as a pollination signal and describe the underlying mechanisms of heat production and infrared detection.
Mitochondrial adaptations heat plant reproductive structures in a circadian pattern, radiating infrared that is sufficient to attract beetle pollinators.
Beetle antennae contain infrared-activated neurons with thermosensitive ion channels that are structurally tuned to match host plant thermogenesis. Comparative analyses revealed that infrared is among the earliest pollination signals, and indicate a deep-time transition from infrared-based to color-dominated signaling in flowering plants.
Our findings uncover an ancient sensory modality shaping the early evolution of pollination, one of the world’s most vital processes linking plants and animals."
Infrared radiation is an ancient pollination signal (no public access)
A thermal image of two male cones of the cycad Zamia furfuracea. The cones heat up during pollen release. Some areas of the cones can heat differentially, and these patterns serve as pollination guides. (Source)
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