Reviews & Analysis

Investigations in Arabidopsis reveal how coding-sequence-localized N⁶-methyladenosine (m⁶A) triggers co-translational mRNA decay at the endoplasmic reticulum to rapidly resolve translational overload in response to both abiotic and biotic stressors.

How leaf temperature deviates from air temperature informs species’ thermoregulation strategies. This meta-analysis-based Review presents a global picture of thermoregulation behaviours and the implications for plants’ responses to thermal stress.

A high-quality genome assembly of the elite bread wheat cultivar JM44, combined with population genomics, reveals the adaptive evolution of wheat end-use quality. The findings show that human selection has preferentially targeted variable gluten genes and strengthened epistatic interactions over millennia, and points to new breeding strategies for wheat with improved baking quality.

Water lilies are basal angiosperms that are important for understanding the origin and rapid radiation of flowering plants. Complete, gapless genome assemblies of three water lily species reveal the molecular innovations behind floral scent, colour and pollination that drove the early success of angiosperms, as well as gene losses associated with the transition to an aquatic existence.

Rice plants facing fungal infection mobilize a soil-borne defence force via a previously unknown mechanism. We uncovered a complete signalling axis that connects leaf infection to the root secretion of heptadecanoic acid, a fatty acid that we found to recruit beneficial Bacillus bacteria to roots to boost plant immunity.

This Review highlights emerging roles of non-m⁶A modifications, such as 5-methylcytosine, N⁴-acetylcytidine and pseudouridine, in plant mRNAs, outlining their effects on mRNA processing, development and stress adaptation, as well as advances in detection methods and future directions.

Zygote-to-adult lineage tracing in plants has been difficult to achieve. An Arabidopsis lineage map reconstructed by Xia et al. from genome-encoded records and read out at single-cell resolution links genealogy to cell identities and uncovers a generalized ‘three-cell rule’ of branching.

Mitochondrial genes in most crops are inherited maternally. In this issue of Nature Plants, Gonzalez-Duran et al. report that mitochondrial genes can be inherited from both parents.

The false smut fungus attacks rice by secreting a ‘weapon’ that targets a key protein in the plant’s flowers. This single move simultaneously stops the rice from making grains and shuts down its natural immune defences. The discovery of this strategy offers an opportunity to develop disease-resistant rice in the future.

Cereal protein biofortification can improve nutrition while maintaining yield and lowering environmental impact. This Review shows how genetics and breeding can enhance protein quality in staple cereals to support healthier and more sustainable diets.

Heat stress threatens wheat productivity, necessitating genetic solutions for heat stress tolerance. We identified TaHST2, a key heat stress tolerance regulator, and demonstrated that intronic variations and epigenetic modifications silence TaHST2 in heat-tolerant wheat, probably as an adaptive consequence of hexaploidization and domestication.

A computational model based on early inflorescence development in wheat and rice has revealed how the timing of primordia initiation and meristem transition jointly shapes architectural diversity. It not only predicted independent mechanisms for ‘paired spikelet’ formation but also guided the identification of RA2-D, a gene that accelerates heading and can boost grain yield.

We identify ZmMYB127 as a central regulator of maize endosperm filling, which executes dual transcriptional activities to coordinate development of the aleurone layer and nutrient accumulation in grain. This coordination enhances grain yield and quality, underscoring ZmMYB127 as a potential target for improving maize breeding.

A multilayered pangenomic resource for Sorghum bicolor, integrating an improved reference genome, a representative 33-accession pangenome and a global panel of nearly 2,000 lines, establishes a powerful platform for trait discovery and genetic improvement.

Virus-mediated, heritable, tissue culture-free and transgene-free gene editing is enhanced by an engineered TnpB variant in Nicotiana benthamiana.

Potato is clonally propagated, with a complex genome and a challenging breeding system. Genome-enabled approaches have shed light on the molecular genetic basis of key traits, thereby enabling accelerated breeding strategies and bringing potato in line with other key food crops such as maize and rice that exploit heterosis.

Plants close their stomata to block pathogen entry, but how this defence is supported at the organelle level remains unclear. Our study reveals that immune signalling promotes MIRO1-dependent mitochondrial fusion in guard cells, supporting mitochondrial functional homeostasis that enables effective stomatal closure.

A new winter-rotation oilseed crop has been generated from a freeze-tolerant wild field pennycress by de novo domestication, reducing its glucosinolate and erucic acid contents, as well as its weediness, without a growth and yield penalty. Commercialization has resulted in a low-carbon-intensity intermediate crop, demonstrating a great potential for de novo domestication to create a new crop rotation paradigm for the optimized utilization of agricultural resources.

Human-driven native extinctions and alien naturalizations are reshaping global tree diversity. Analysing traits and environmental niches of more than 31,000 species, we showed a global shift towards fast-growing, high-resource-use trees and that slow-growing species face a rising extinction risk, findings that have major implications for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

The OsLHT1a allele of the amino acid transporter gene OsLHT1 in the Oryza sativa spp. japonica rice variety, which differs from the OsLHT1b allele in the Oryza sativa spp. indica variety, enhances organic nitrogen use efficiency in high-organic-matter soils through recruitment of a specific rhizosphere microbiota that boosts amino acid production and uptake.