Review: Strigolactones integrate metabolic and nutritional signals Strigolactones are a class of hormones first identified in the 1960s as components of root exudates that promote germination of parasitic Striga seeds, and later as a promoter of associations with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Strigolactones…

Focus Issue: Biomolecular Condensates Although The Plant Cell Focus Issue on Biomolecular Condensates officially comes out in September, due to the idiosyncrasies of publishing many of the articles are already available online, and I'm highlighting them now because this topic is also the focus of…

Review. CRISPR/Cas-mediated plant genome editing: Outstanding challenges a decade after implementation I’ll be honest, I was surprised to see “a decade after implementation” in this title, but indeed, the first publication describing CRISPR/Cas in plants was in 2013. We’ve learned a lot in…

Essay: The coming golden age of lichen biology Lichens are remarkable, complex symbiotic organisms. They have evolved multiple times independently, but all lichen include at least one fungal partner (the mycobiont) which they usually resemble morphologically, and at least one cyanobacterial or algal…

Review: Stress-related biomolecular condensates in plants Biomolecular condensates are non-membrane-bound compartments containing proteins and RNAs with key functions in stress responses. In plants, they occur as several types with different properties and components, including stress granules and…

Review: Climate change impacts on plant pathogens, food security, and paths forward Much of what is written about the impacts of climate change on food production is focused on the abiotic stresses that plants will experience, but biotic stresses will be equally impactful, as discussed in this fine…

Review: Resolving metabolic interaction mechanisms in plant microbiomes Life is spurred forward by the power of metabolic interactions. Within the plant microbiome, microbial communities use diverse mechanisms to thrive, survive, and multiply. In this review, Pacheco & Vorholt describe the interplay…

Review: Proximity labeling in plants Genetic studies can suggest that two proteins function in the same pathway, but how can we figure out if they share the same space? In this review, Xu et al. provide an overview of proximity labeling, a method to identify proteins that co-localize in space. Proximity…