Plant hormone transport gaps could help fight parasitic weeds
Vo KTX, Li X, Yu M, Martinoia E, Kretzschmar T
Plant Signaling
The witchweed and broomrape that devastate cereal and legume fields across Africa and the Mediterranean hijack a hormone signal this research is racing to understand, and cracking its transport code could lead to new ways to stop them.
Plants make a hormone called strigolactone in their roots that tells the plant how to branch, but this hormone also leaks into the soil and accidentally signals parasitic weeds to germinate nearby. Scientists know a lot about how plants build and sense this hormone, but they're still mostly guessing about how it actually travels from where it's made to where it's needed. This review pulls together the few known transport proteins and lays out the big open questions, aiming to help researchers eventually breed crops that are better at fending off parasitic weeds like witchweed and broomrape.
Key Findings
Strigolactone synthesis and signaling pathways are well characterized, but active transport mechanisms remain largely unknown
Several strigolactone transporters have already been identified in two globally important crop species in the context of crop protection
The review identifies critical knowledge gaps and proposes a conceptual framework to guide future research on strigolactone movement
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists reviewed what we know (and don't) about how plants move strigolactones, hormones that control branching and interact with parasitic weeds and beneficial fungi, pointing toward new strategies to protect crops from destructive parasitic plants.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
The knowns and unknowns of strigolactone transport.
Phytohormones are predominantly produced in tissues that are spatially separated from their perceptive target tissues. Consequently, short- and long-distance phytohormone movement is a prerequisite...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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