PubMed · 2026-06-05
Scientists knocked out all 10 copies of a gene family in Arabidopsis and found they collectively control branching, flowering time, iron uptake, and photosynthesis — revealing that plants use sugar-signaling molecules to coordinate growth and nutrition simultaneously.
Knocking out all 10 TPP genes caused increased shoot branching and earlier flowering, defects partially rescued by re-introducing a single GFP-tagged gene (TPPI) that localizes to meristems, vascular tissue, and cell nuclei.
The 10× mutants accumulated higher trehalose-6-phosphate and lower trehalose, and were chlorotic with low iron levels that could be rescued by iron supplementation.
Iron-responsive and developmental genes were upregulated while photosynthesis genes were repressed in the 10× mutants, linking Tre6P sugar signaling to both iron homeostasis and photosynthetic capacity.
