Seed development articles from across Nature Portfolio

A cereal-specific transcription factor, ZmICE1a, positively regulates storage in the central part of the endosperm while negatively regulating defence in its peripheral region, revealing the molecular mechanism underlying the antagonism between resistance and yield, which is crucial for cereal crop improvement.

The efficient induction of embryos without fertilization, which is important for crop breeding and hybrid seed production, can be achieved by combined expression in the egg of BBM1 and WOX9A, two rice transcription factors normally expressed from the male genome.

Hybrid seed failure in plant breeding arises from disrupted endosperm development. Reduced maternal sirenRNAs and increased expression of AGL transcription factors cause abnormal gene regulation in the endosperm, preventing successful wide species crosses.

Seed formation requires a coordinated development of its three parts: embryo, endosperm and seed coat. The plant hormones brassinosteroids contribute this this coordination by influencing how different seed components perceive each other’s growth.

The ovule nucellus generates and then nurtures the female germline until maturity, preparing it for fertilization and seed development. We reveal that a B-sister MADS-box transcription factor, MADS31, is expressed in the inner subdomain of the nucellus and sustains germline development by preventing expression of post-fertilization genes.

The endosperm is a seed tissue that supports the embryo. In most flowering plant species, the endosperm starts as a coenocyte that cellularizes after a defined number of mitotic divisions. We show that endosperm cellularization is under antagonistic parental control mediated by a family of maternally expressed auxin response factors.

Sustainable crop protection approaches are crucial to feeding an exponentially increasing global population. Seed wraps developed from banana harvest biomass and loaded with an ultra-low volume of a pesticide resulted in a substantial increase in the yield and quality of yam crops in field trials in Benin.