Temperature regulation in plants: From molecular mechanisms to climate-resilient crop improvement.
Zeng R, Yang C, Luo W, Zhang LL, Chong K
Climate Adaptation
PubMedThe wheat in your bread and the vegetables in your garden depend on precise temperature cues to know when to flower and set seed — and scientists decoding exactly how plants 'feel' cold and heat are now using that knowledge to engineer crops that won't fail when a late frost or early heatwave scrambles those seasonal signals.
Plants don't just suffer through hot or cold spells — they actively read temperature as information, using it to decide when to bloom, how to reshape their bodies, and whether conditions are right to reproduce. One of the most remarkable tricks is a kind of cellular memory: a long, cold winter chemically marks certain genes in a seed, quietly telling the plant 'you've lived through winter, now it's safe to flower in spring.' Researchers are now combining knowledge of these mechanisms with gene editing tools and artificial intelligence to design crop varieties that can handle the erratic temperatures caused by climate change.
Key Findings
Plants integrate temperature signals through interconnected networks spanning hormones, light pathways, circadian clocks, and chromatin remodeling — allowing them to respond to both moderate warmth and extreme cold or heat with coordinated changes in architecture and development.
Vernalization (winter cold exposure) imprints a stable epigenetic memory on plant DNA: in thale cress this silences the flowering-suppressor gene FLC, while in cereal crops like wheat it activates the flowering-promoter gene VRN1 — and crucially, this memory is erased and reset in every new generation of seeds.
Temperature-sensitive male sterility in crop lines is governed by RNA metabolism and protein quality-control systems, providing the genetic mechanism behind two-line hybrid breeding programs that are used to produce high-yielding hybrid seed varieties at commercial scale.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Plants use sophisticated, multi-layered molecular systems to sense temperature and translate those signals into decisions about when to flower, how tall to grow, and whether to reproduce — all critical for yield. This review synthesizes how those systems work and charts a path toward using gene editing and AI to breed crops that stay productive as global temperatures grow more extreme and unpredictable.
Abstract Preview
Temperature is a fundamental environmental determinant of plant growth, development, reproduction, and yield, and increasing thermal variability poses a major threat to global food security. Plants...
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Arabidopsis thaliana, the thale cress, mouse-ear cress or arabidopsis, is a small plant from the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to Eurasia and Africa. Commonly found along the shoulders of roads and in disturbed land, it is generally considered a weed.