Plant Biology

The Rhizobial effector NopT targets Nod factor receptors to regulate symbiosis in Lotus japonicus

1. Hanbin Bao
2. Yanan Wang
3. Haoxing Li
4. Qiang Wang
5. Yutao Lei
6. Ying Ye
7. Syed F Wadood
8. Hui Zhu
9. Christian Stahelin
10. Gary Stacey
11. Shutong Xu
12. Yangrong Cao

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript presents important findings on a bacterial effector involved in plant symbiotic signaling. The effector proteolytically targets a key receptor while its activity is counteracted by host-mediated phosphorylation, revealing a dynamic interplay that fine-tunes symbiotic interactions. The evidence supporting these claims is solid, and the findings have potential signaling implications beyond bacterial interactions with plants.

Reviewed by eLife

Structure, function and assembly of soybean primary cell wall cellulose synthases

1. Ruoya Ho
2. Pallinti Purushotham
3. Louis FL Wilson
4. Yueping Wan
5. Jochen Zimmer

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  It is well established cellulose synthesis in higher plants requires three different but related catalytic subunits known as CESA proteins. Here the authors provide cryo electron microscopy structural information on soybean CESA1, CESA3, and CESA6 and find substantial differences between the structure of these CESA homotrimers and the previously-resolved secondary cell wall CESAs. They present an important model with convincing evidence in which the multi-subunit cellulose synthase complexes are made of multiple homotrimers.

Reviewed by eLife

Natural variation in salt-induced changes in root:shoot ratio reveals SR3G as a negative regulator of root suberization and salt resilience in Arabidopsis

1. Maryam Rahmati Ishka
2. Hayley Sussman
3. Yunfei Hu
4. Mashael Daghash Alqahtani
5. Eric Craft
6. Ronell Sicat
7. Minmin Wang
8. Li’ang Yu
9. Rashid Ait-Haddou
10. Bo Li
11. Georgia Drakakaki
12. Andrew Nelson
13. Miguel Pineros
14. Arthur Korte
15. Lukasz Jaremko
16. Christa Testerink
17. Mark Tester
18. Magdalena M Julkowska

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Through cellular, developmental, and physiological analysis, this valuable study identifies a gene that regulates the relative growth of roots and shoots under salt stress. The holistic approach taken provides convincing evidence that this member of a larger tandemly duplicated gene family together with an upstream regulator contributes to salt tolerance. The manuscript will be of interest to plant biologists studying mechanisms of abiotic stress tolerance and gene family evolution.

Reviewed by eLife

A simple method to efficiently generate structural variation in plants

1. Lindsey L. Bechen
2. Naiyara Ahsan
3. Alefiyah Bahrainwala
4. Mary Gehring
5. PRV Satyaki

Reviewed by PREreview

Specific light-regime adaptations, terpenoid profiles and engineering potential in ecologically diverse Phaeodactylum tricornutum strains

1. Luca Morelli
2. Payal Patwari
3. Florian Pruckner
4. Maxime Bastide
5. Michele Fabris

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

ATG6 interacting with NPR1 increases Arabidopsis thaliana resistance to Pst DC3000/avrRps4 by increasing its nuclear accumulation and stability

1. Baihong Zhang
2. Shuqin Huang
3. Shuyu Guo
4. Yixuan Meng
5. Yuzhen Tian
6. Yue Zhou
7. Hang Chen
8. Xue Li
9. Jun Zhou
10. Wenli Chen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study investigates the role of ATG6 in regulating NPR1, a key protein in the plant immune response. The authors present compelling evidence that ATG6 not only interacts with NPR1 in both the cytoplasm and nucleus but also enhances its stability and nuclear accumulation, leading to increased resistance to Pst DC3000/avrRps4 infection in Arabidopsis thaliana. The work incorporates a variety of approaches from molecular biology, confocal imaging, and biochemistry, which together strengthen the conclusions.

Reviewed by eLife

Polyploid genome assembly of Cardamine chenopodiifolia

1. Aurélia Emonet
2. Mohamed Awad
3. Nikita Tikhomirov
4. Maria Vasilarou
5. Miguel Pérez-Antón
6. Xiangchao Gan
7. Polina Yu. Novikova
8. Angela Hay

• Curated by GigaByte

  This evaluation refers to version 1 of the preprint

  This work presents the genome of Cardamine chenopodiifolia, an amphicarpic plant (developing two fruit types, one above and another below ground) in the mustard (Brassicaceae) family. Cardamines also known as bittercresses and toothworts. As an octoploid species it has been challenging to create a genome reference for this species, and in this case the authors finally managed to achieve this using PacBio HiFi long-reads and Omni-C technology to assemble a fully phased, chromosome-level genome. Obtaining a 597Mb genome assembled into 32 phased chromosomes (plus mitochondrial and plastid genomes), and only having one gap in the centromeric region of chromosome 9. Peer review asked for additional QC and benchmarking, helping demonstrate the genome quality was very high, with only one gap and a N50 of 18.80Mb. The data presented here potentially helping to develop this species as an emerging model organism in the Brassicaceae for studying the development and evolution of amphicarpy by allopolyploidy.

  This evaluation refers to version 1 of the preprint

Reviewed by GigaByte

Virtual staining from bright-field microscopy for label-free quantitative analysis of plant cell structures

1. Manami Ichita
2. Haruna Yamamichi
3. Takumi Higaki

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

A florigen-expressing subpopulation of companion cells expresses other small proteins and reveals a nitrogen-sensitive FT repressor

1. Hiroshi Takagi
2. Shogo Ito
3. Jae Sung Shim
4. Akane Kubota
5. Andrew K Hempton
6. Nayoung Lee
7. Takamasa Suzuki
8. Chansie Yang
9. Christine T Nolan
10. Kerry L Bubb
11. Cristina M Alexandre
12. Daisuke Kurihara
13. Yoshikatsu Sato
14. Yasuomi Tada
15. Takatoshi Kiba
16. Jose L Pruneda-Paz
17. Christine Queitsch
18. Josh T Cuperus
19. Takato Imaizumi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors demonstrated cellular heterogeneity of companion cells (CCs) and also suggested the CC subpopulation that highly expressed the florigen gene FT. Based on this finding, they further identified flowering time regulators acting in CCs, including small proteins and NITRATE-INDUCIBLE GARP-TYPE TRANSCRIPTIONAL REPRESSOR1 type proteins (NIGT1s). In particular, the authors propose the NIGT1-FT regulatory module, which may be involved in the response to nitrogen status. This important study advances our understanding of flowering time control at high spatial resolution. While we believe this work will be of broad interest to plant biologists, the supporting evidence remains in parts incomplete. In particular, the quality of the single-cell and bulk RNA-seq data needs to be addressed to solidify the conclusions.

Reviewed by eLife

Plant plasmodesmata bridges form through ER-dependent incomplete cytokinesis

1. Ziqiang P. Li
2. Hortense Moreau
3. Jules D. Petit
4. Tatiana Souza-Moraes
5. Marija Smokvarska
6. Jessica Perez-Sancho
7. Melina Petrel
8. Fanny Decoeur
9. Lysiane Brocard
10. Clément Chambaud
11. Magali Grison
12. Andrea Paterlini
13. Marie Glavier
14. Lucie Hoornaert
15. Amit S. Joshi
16. Etienne Gontier
17. William A. Prinz
18. Yvon Jaillais
19. Antoine Taly
20. Felix Campelo
21. Marie-Cécile Caillaud
22. Emmanuelle M. Bayer

Reviewed by preLights