Guanosine tetraphosphate (ppGpp) is a hyperphosphorylated nucleotide originally discovered in prokaryotes and found in the chloroplasts of plants and algae. In plants, ppGpp signalling plays a role as...

Installing algal pyrenoids or cyanobacterial carboxysomes into plants to enhance photosynthetic efficiency remains a formidable challenge. Here, the authors report the construction of CO2-fixing nanoc...

Tue 2 Dec, 9:00 AM - Wed 3, 1:30 PM [CET]: Green Christmas Session 2025 (GCS 2025) is an online conference exploring advances in the structure, function, and dynamics of photosynthetic components,…

Cysteine supply is crucial for ABA biosynthesis in plants. Here, the authors report that chloroplast cysteine synthase complex regulates stomatal closure by integrating different stress signals via dy...

The discovery of chlorophyll f-containing photosystems, with their long-wavelength photochemistry, represented a distinct, low-energy paradigm for oxygenic photosynthesis. Structural studies on chloro...

Land plants include angiosperms, gymnosperms, bryophytes, lycophytes, and ferns, each of which may deploy distinct strategies to resist pathogens. Here, we investigate fern-pathogen interactions by characterizing novel pathosystems and analyzing the diversity of fern immune receptors. A collection of fern species was inoculated with a diverse set of filamentous microbes, and disease symptoms were assessed. We further leveraged published genome mining tools to analyse the diversity of receptor-like kinases, receptor-like proteins (RLKs/RLPs) and nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeats (NLRs), along with key immune signalling components, in ferns. Our results reveal that ferns exhibit a range of responses to pathogens, including putative non-host resistance and more specific resistance mechanisms. Among ten ferns tested, Pteris vittata displays the broadest spectrum of pathogen compatibility. Genome mining indicates that ferns encode a diverse repertoire of putative immune receptors, antimicrobial peptides, and mediators of systemic acquired resistance. Ferns possess numerous RLKs/RLPs, resembling those required for cell-surface immunity in angiosperms. They also encode diverse NLRs, including sub-families lost in flowering plants. These findings provide insights into disease resistance evolution and open promising perspectives for crop protection strategies.

The authors jointly assess the changes in land and ocean net primary production from 2003 to 2021. They show contrasting trends, with overall planetary increases (0.11 ± 0.13 PgC yr−1) driven by terrestrial enhancement and offset by oceanic decline.

To achieve the European Green Deal’s goal of 25% organic agriculture by 2030, researchers argue that new genomic techniques (NGTs) should be allowed without pre-market authorization in organic a...

Photorespiration consumes photosynthetically fixed carbon and reduces yields by 20%–50% in C3 crops. In an attempt to increase photosynthetic efficien…

To cope with changing external conditions, plants undergo dynamic acclimation processes that remodel their photosynthetic machinery, optimizing energy use while minimizing damage to photosystems (PS)....