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Recycling signalling molecules allows plants to survive environmental stresses
Newly discovered mechanism paves the way for improved crop resilience to unpredictable growing seasons
3 June, 2025
An international collaborative study has identified a new molecular recycling mechanism that plants utilize to survive under conditions of continuous stress. The study, published this week in the journal PNAS, shows that trafficking proteins localize at specific nanodomains known as ‘contact sites’. These are tiny regions inside a plant cell in which the external cell membrane (or plasma membrane) comes into proximity to an internal membranous system known as ‘the endoplasmic reticulum’. These proteins act as bridges connecting both membranes and serve as highways for the transfer of signalling molecules that enable the plant to adapt its physiology to unfavourable environmental conditions.
Plant activate a myriad of responses to adapt and survive when under unfavourable conditions. In nature, they can often thrive under suboptimal conditions, even when encountering multiple environmental challenges such as temperature fluctuations, drought, limited access to nutrients, pests and pathogens . The onset of anthropogenic climate change has made these environmental challenges more extreme and unpredictable in occurrence and duration. To address these problems and future-proof crops to withstand these challenges, it will be necessary to understand the resistance mechanisms that plants naturally deploy so that this know-how can be used to develop crops that can survive and thrive by boosting their innate resilience.
“We have shown in this work how small lipid signalling molecules produced at the intersection of cell membranes can contribute to whole plant stress resilience”, said Prof. Miguel Botella of the Instituto de Hortofruticultura Subtropical y Mediterránea "Lay Mayora" (IHSM), Spain, who led the study team. “Using genetics, molecular techniques, advanced microscopy and cutting edge analysis techniques, we have been able to show how these molecules have distinct locations in plant cells under different circumstances.” Overall, the study reveals how small lipid molecules are transported to the endoplasmic reticulum where they are modified and returned to the plasma membrane with new functionality.
The Rothamsted lipidomics team were a key part of the collaboration. Professor Johnathan Napier said "It is great to get the chance to work with experts from different fields”
The work was led by IHSM-CSIC-UMA, as well as national and international collaborators from CIB, Spain, ENS Lyon (France) and Rothamsted Research in the UK.
Publication
Contacts
Prof. Richard Haslam
Plant Lipid Biochemist
Dr Louise Michaelson
Lipid Biochemist
Prof. Johnathan Napier
Omega-3 Camelina Development
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