Plant cells are totipotent, meaning individual cells have the potential to develop into a full organism, a property unique to the zygote for animals. However, in most species for most cells, plant cells are not spontaneously totipotent, since they must be treated with specific hormone combinations to unlock their totipotency. Species within the Kalanchoe genus is unique as they spontaneously develop foliar embryos that are fully realized plantlets with shoot and root from notches along the edges of leaves. We speculate that the progenitor cells that give rise to these foliar embryos are totipotent, and we are using single cell techniques to identify & characterize them. In addition to being a fundamental process for plant biology, we foresee unlocking totipotency has many biotechnological applications, such as faciliating genetic transformation and the development of synthetic organs of biomanufacturing.

Key message Induction of parthenogenesis (embryo formation from unfertilized egg cells) by embryogenic transcription factors is associated with twin formation at high frequencies, and involves two dis...

The efficient induction of embryos without fertilization, which is important for crop breeding and hybrid seed production, can be achieved by combined expression in the egg of BBM1 and WOX9A, two rice...