Resilient plants, sustainable future.

The accelerated pace of climate change over the past several years should serve as a wake-up call for all scientists, farmers, and decision makers, as it severely threatens our food supply and could result in famine, migration, war, and an overall destabilization of our society. Rapid and significant changes are therefore needed in the way we conduct research on plant resilience, develop new crop varieties, and cultivate those crops in our agricultural systems. Here, we describe the main bottlenecks for these processes and outline a set of key recommendations on how to accelerate research in this critical area for our society.

Plant Metabolic Network 16: expansion of underrepresented plant groups and experimentally supported enzyme data.

The Plant Metabolic Network (PMN) is a free online database of plant metabolism available at https://plantcyc.org. The latest release, PMN 16, provides metabolic databases representing >1200 metabolic pathways, 1.

A high-throughput behavioral screening platform for measuring chemotaxis by C. elegans.

Throughout history, humans have relied on plants as a source of medication, flavoring, and food. Plants synthesize large chemical libraries and release many of these compounds into the rhizosphere and atmosphere where they affect animal and microbe behavior. To survive, nematodes must have evolved the sensory capacity to distinguish plant-made small molecules (SMs) that are harmful and must be avoided from those that are beneficial and should be sought.

A reference-free algorithm discovers regulation in the plant transcriptome.

Most plant genomes and their regulation remain unknown. We used SPLASH - a new, reference-genome free sequence variation detection algorithm - to analyze transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation from RNA-seq data. We discovered differential homolog expression during maize pollen development, and imbibition-dependent cryptic splicing in Arabidopsis seeds.

Non-destructive, whole-plant phenotyping reveals dynamic changes in water use efficiency, photosynthesis, and rhizosphere acidification of sorghum accessions under osmotic stress.

Noninvasive phenotyping can quantify dynamic plant growth processes at higher temporal resolution than destructive phenotyping and can reveal phenomena that would be missed by end-point analysis alone. Additionally, whole-plant phenotyping can identify growth conditions that are optimal for both above- and below-ground tissues. However, noninvasive, whole-plant phenotyping approaches available today are generally expensive, complex, and non-modular.

Arabidopsis thaliana RHAMNOSE 1 condensate formation drives UDP-rhamnose synthesis.

Rhamnose is an essential component of the plant cell wall and is synthesized from uridine diphosphate (UDP)-glucose by the RHAMNOSE1 (RHM1) enzyme. RHM1 localizes to biomolecular condensates in plants, but their identity, formation, and function remain elusive. Combining live imaging, genetics, and biochemical approaches in Arabidopsis and heterologous systems, we show that RHM1 alone is sufficient to form enzymatically active condensates, which we name rhamnosomes.

Variability in drought gene expression datasets highlight the need for community standardization.

Physiologically relevant drought stress is difficult to apply consistently, and the heterogeneity in experimental design, growth conditions, and sampling schemes make it challenging to compare water deficit studies in plants. Here, we re-analyzed hundreds of drought gene expression experiments across diverse model and crop species and quantified the variability across studies. We found that drought studies are surprisingly uncomparable, even when accounting for differences in genotype, environment, drought severity, and method of drying.

Status of genome function annotation in model organisms and crops.

Since the entry into genome-enabled biology several decades ago, much progress has been made in determining, describing, and disseminating the functions of genes and their products. Yet, this information is still difficult to access for many scientists and for most genomes. To provide easy access and a graphical summary of the status of genome function annotation for model organisms and bioenergy and food crop species, we created a web application (https://genomeannotation.

An efficient behavioral screening platform classifies natural products and other chemical cues according to their chemosensory valence in .

Throughout history, humans have relied on plants as a source of medication, flavoring, and food. Plants synthesize large chemical libraries and release many of these compounds into the rhizosphere and atmosphere where they affect animal and microbe behavior. To survive, nematodes must have evolved the sensory capacity to distinguish plant-made small molecules (SMs) that are harmful and must be avoided from those that are beneficial and should be sought.

ARSK1 activates TORC1 signaling to adjust growth to phosphate availability in Arabidopsis.

Nutrient sensing and signaling are essential for adjusting growth and development to available resources. Deprivation of the essential mineral phosphorus (P) inhibits root growth. The molecular processes that sense P limitation to trigger early root growth inhibition are not known yet.

Plants use molecular mechanisms mediated by biomolecular condensates to integrate environmental cues with development.

This review highlights recent literature on biomolecular condensates in plant development and discusses challenges for fully dissecting their functional roles. Plant developmental biology has been inundated with descriptive examples of biomolecular condensate formation, but it is only recently that mechanistic understanding has been forthcoming. Here, we discuss recent examples of potential roles biomolecular condensates play at different stages of the plant life cycle.

Evaluating Plant Drought Resistance with a Raspberry Pi and Time-lapse Photography.

Identifying genetic variations or treatments that confer greater resistance to drought is paramount to ensuring sustainable crop productivity. Accurate and reproducible measurement of drought stress symptoms can be achieved via automated, image-based phenotyping. Many phenotyping platforms are either cost-prohibitive, require specific technical expertise, or are simply more complex than necessary to effectively evaluate drought resistance.

Interpreting omics data with pathway enrichment analysis.

Pathway enrichment analysis is indispensable for interpreting omics datasets and generating hypotheses. However, the foundations of enrichment analysis remain elusive to many biologists. Here, we discuss best practices in interpreting different types of omics data using pathway enrichment analysis and highlight the importance of considering intrinsic features of various types of omics data.

Renaming Indigenous crops and addressing colonial bias in scientific language.

Indigenous crops, commonly known as orphan, forgotten, or neglected crops, are understudied, but have important roles in the diet and economy of the communities that cultivate them. Here, we review potential benefits of Indigenous crop research and highlight the importance of an anticolonial framework to prevent exploitation of these unique resources.

Uncoupling differential water usage from drought resistance in a dwarf Arabidopsis mutant.

Understanding the molecular and physiological mechanisms of how plants respond to drought is paramount to breeding more drought-resistant crops. Certain mutations or allelic variations result in plants with altered water-use requirements. To correctly identify genetic differences which confer a drought phenotype, plants with different genotypes must be subjected to equal levels of drought stress.

First Plant Cell Atlas symposium report.

The Plant Cell Atlas (PCA) community hosted a virtual symposium on December 9 and 10, 2021 on single cell and spatial omics technologies. The conference gathered almost 500 academic, industry, and government leaders to identify the needs and directions of the PCA community and to explore how establishing a data synthesis center would address these needs and accelerate progress. This report details the presentations and discussions focused on the possibility of a data synthesis center for a PCA and the expected impacts of such a center on advancing science and technology globally.

CHIQUITA1 maintains the temporal transition between proliferation and differentiation in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Body size varies widely among species, populations and individuals, depending on the environment. Transitioning between proliferation and differentiation is a crucial determinant of final organ size, but how the timing of this transition is established and maintained remains unknown. Using cell proliferation markers and genetic analysis, we show that CHIQUITA1 (CHIQ1) is required to maintain the timing of the transition from proliferation to differentiation in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Omics-guided metabolic pathway discovery in plants: Resources, approaches, and opportunities.

Plants produce a vast array of metabolites, the biosynthetic routes of which remain largely undetermined. Genome-scale enzyme and pathway annotations and omics technologies have revolutionized research to decrypt plant metabolism and produced a growing list of functionally characterized metabolic genes and pathways. However, what is known is still a tiny fraction of the metabolic capacity harbored by plants.

Association Between Antihypertensive Use and Hospitalized Pneumonia in Patients With Stroke: A Korean Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study.

Background: We aimed to examine the association between antihypertensive use and the incidence of hospitalized pneumonia in patients with a history of stroke.

Methods: In this case-crossover study, we obtained data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service-National Sample Cohort database. We included the data of patients with history of stroke who were admitted with a disease code of pneumonia.

Live imaging embryos under different hydration conditions.

Despite the ecological and agronomical importance of seed germination, how seeds integrate environmental signals to trigger germination remains enigmatic. Recently we reported that a protein called FLOE1 is involved in sensing and responding to water availability during germination. Here, we present a live-imaging protocol to assess the subcellular localization of a protein of interest during imbibition of desiccated seeds with the goal of understanding protein dynamics during the early stages of water uptake.

Interdependent iron and phosphorus availability controls photosynthesis through retrograde signaling.

Iron deficiency hampers photosynthesis and is associated with chlorosis. We recently showed that iron deficiency-induced chlorosis depends on phosphorus availability. How plants integrate these cues to control chlorophyll accumulation is unknown.

Mineral nutrient signaling controls photosynthesis: focus on iron deficiency-induced chlorosis.

Photosynthetic organisms convert light energy into chemical energy stored in carbohydrates. To perform this process, an adequate supply of essential mineral elements, such as iron, is required in the chloroplast. Because iron plays a crucial role during electron transport and chlorophyll formation, iron deficiency alters photosynthesis and promotes chlorosis, or the yellowing of leaves.

Progress and challenges in sorghum biotechnology, a multipurpose feedstock for the bioeconomy.

Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is the fifth most important cereal crop globally by harvested area and production. Its drought and heat tolerance allow high yields with minimal input.

Incidence and Reappraisal of Known Risk Factors Associated with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: A Nationwide, 11-Year, Population-Based Study in South Korea.

Background And Purpose: Previous studies have revealed various risk factors for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), but few large-scale studies have been conducted. We used data from the 11-year, longitudinal, nationwide population-based National Health Insurance Service-National Health Screening cohort to identify the actual risk factors for CTS.

Methods: We collected patients with CTS newly diagnosed using electrodiagnostic studies while excluding radiculopathy, plexopathy, or polyneuropathy, which can be confused with CTS.