COCHLEATA controls spatial regulation of cytokinin and auxin during nodule development.
Plant Signaling
Every garden pea, lentil, or clover you grow feeds itself partly by partnering with soil bacteria that pull nitrogen straight from the air—and this research reveals the molecular switch that keeps those partnerships from going wrong.
Peas and their legume relatives have special root bumps called nodules where bacteria live and convert air into plant-usable nitrogen—basically free fertilizer. A gene named COCHLEATA acts like a traffic controller, making sure two plant hormones stay in the right zones so nodules form correctly instead of turning into a weird root-nodule hybrid. When researchers knocked out this gene, the nodules got confused about their identity, behaving more like roots and losing their nitrogen-fixing efficiency.
Key Findings
COCHLEATA suppresses cytokinin levels and signaling during nodule formation, preventing nodules from reverting to root-like identity.
COCHLEATA promotes auxin accumulation and precise spatial patterning of auxin response within developing nodules.
Mutant plants lacking COCHLEATA show gene expression profiles resembling root primordia, with increased defense and auxin response genes and reduced cytokinin biosynthesis genes compared to wild-type plants.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists discovered that a gene called COCHLEATA controls how pea plants balance two key hormones—cytokinin and auxin—to build proper root nodules, the structures that house nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Without this gene, nodules grow as confused hybrids that look partly like roots, undermining the plant's ability to capture atmospheric nitrogen.
Abstract Preview
Root nodules host nitrogen-fixing bacteria and likely evolved through modifications of the lateral root program. Members of the NOOT-BOP-COCH-LIKE transcriptional coregulator family suppress root i...
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Pea is a pulse or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Peas are eaten as a vegetable.