γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA), a nonproteinogenic amino acid first identified in biological systems over 70 years ago, has long been recognized as a metabolic intermediate. More recently, GABA has also been acknowledged as a signaling molecule that couples physiological responses to metabolic status. This review presents a conceptual framework for how metabolism sets GABA concentration and localization, which then modulate ion transport and membrane potential dynamics to influence plant growth, development, and adaptation to stress. We explore the emerging network of GABA's interactions with other signaling pathways, highlighting its involvement in environmental sensing and internal regulatory mechanisms via hormones and reactive oxygen species. These interactions influence key physiological processes including stomatal regulation, pathogen and herbivore defense, root growth, and even the modulation of flavor. Collectively, these findings position GABA as a metabolic signal integrator of plant physiological status and responses, with broad implications for enhancing crop stress resilience and food quality.

Wheat is a major staple crop for over one-third of the world's population, crucial for global food security, economic stability and cultural traditions. Recently, single-cell and spatial omics approaches have transformed biological discovery, primarily in medical and animal sciences, and they are now beginning to be applied in plant research. Here we summarize the technical innovations and feasibility of spatial omics applications in wheat research, particularly for understanding developmental and environmental responses, thereby potentially enhancing wheat breeding. We highlight how these tools can reveal spatial and temporal patterns in gene expression, cellular heterogeneity and tissue organization in wheat. Furthermore, we propose developing a spatially resolved single-cell atlas of wheat across its life cycle to facilitate breakthroughs in basic research and potential applications in breeding. To achieve these goals, we advocate for a Wheat Spatial Omics Consortium to foster worldwide collaboration for overcoming barriers and developing sustainable and climate-resilient wheat.

Cadmium (Cd) in soil and water streams is now recognized as a significant environmental issue that harms plants and animals. Plants damaged by Cd toxicity experience various effects, from germination to yield reduction. Plant- and animal-based goods are allowing more Cd to enter our food chain, which could harm human health. Therefore, this urgent global concern must be addressed by implementing appropriate remedial measures. Plant-based phytoremediation is one safe, economical, and environmentally acceptable way to remove hazardous metals from the environment. Hyperaccumulator plants possess specialized transport proteins, such as metal transporters located in membranes of roots, as well as they facilitate Cd uptake from soil. This review outlines the latest findings about these membrane transporters. Moreover, we also discuss how innovative modern tools such as microbiomes, omics, nanotechnology, and genome editing have revealed molecular regulators connected to Cd tolerance, which may be employed to develop Cd-tolerant future plants. We can develop effective solutions to enhance tolerance of plant to Cd toxicity by leveraging membrane transporters and modern biotechnological tools. Additionally, implementing strategies to increase tolerance of Cd and restrict its bioavailability in plants' edible parts is crucial for improving food safety. These combined efforts will lead to the cultivation of safer food crops and support sustainable agricultural practices in contaminated environments.

Blueberry fruit are highly perishable and intolerant of storage. Calcium treatment plays a vital role in preservation of fruit and vegetable. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of calcium chloride treatment on fruit softening at ambient temperature storage with a focus on calcium signal transduction and the relationship between calcium treatment and ABA synthesis and transduction. In this study, higher firmness and a lower decay rate were maintained in fruit that had been treated with 2 % CaCl2. CaCl2 treatment not only delayed the degradation of protopectin, but also significantly increased calcium content in blueberry fruit by positively regulating calcium signal transduction. Inhibited disintegration of cell structure was present in CaCl2 treated fruit, accompanied by delayed softening. Exogenous CaCl2 greatly suppressed the increase in ABA content via down regulation of ABA synthesis-related genes like VcNCED, VcNCED1, VcNCED5, VcZEP, and VcAAO3, as well as ABA transduction-related genes such as VcABF, VcABI5, VcSnRK2, VcPYL and VcABA. However, the expression of the VcPP2C gene was up regulated in presence of exogenous CaCl2. Over all, CaCl2 treatment alleviated blueberry softening by altering endogenous calcium, restricting ABA biosynthesis and altering ABA signal transduction.

The threshing and redrying process is a crucial stage in cigarette production. During this stage, threshing equipment is used to separate the stems from the initially dried tobacco leaves, followed by the redrying of the leaves. Tobacco stems in the leaves affect various cigarette quality evaluation indices, making stem detection extremely important. In actual production, the methods used are mostly manual screening or winnowing equipment. Existing computer vision-based methods also require offline sampling and manual spreading for detection. The above methods are time-consuming and labor-intensive. Therefore, we propose a tobacco stem detection method based on an improved YOLO model, capable of directly detecting tobacco stems in the mixed materials on the production line without the need for offline sampling. This method, built on the YOLO framework, incorporates the SimAM attention module to make the network focus more on the tobacco stem regions. Additionally, it uses a texture enhancement module to extract concealed edge features of the stems, ultimately achieving a detection accuracy (AP50) of 83.6%. This method can effectively improve the detection efficiency of tobacco stems in the threshing and redrying process.

Drought stress represents a devastating natural disaster driven by the continuing intensification of global warming, which seriously threats the productivity and quality of several horticultural crops, including pear. Gibberellins (GAs) play crucial roles in plant growth, development, and responses to drought stress. Previous studies have shown significant reductions of GA levels in plants under drought stress; however, understanding of the intrinsic regulation mechanisms of GA-mediated drought stress in pear remains very limited. Here, we show that drought stress could impair the accumulation of bioactive GAs (BGAs), and subsequently identified PbrGA2ox1 as a chloroplast-localized GA deactivation gene, which was significantly induced by drought stress and abscisic acid (ABA) treatment, but was suppressed by GA3 treatment. PbrGA2ox1-overexpressing transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) plants exhibited enhanced tolerance to dehydration and drought stresses, whereas knock-down of PbrGA2ox1 in pear (Pyrus betulaefolia) by virus-induced gene silencing lead to elevated drought sensitivity. Transgenic plants were hypersensitive to ABA, and had a lower BGAs content, enhanced reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging ability, and augmented ABA accumulation and signaling under drought stress compared to wild-type plants. However, the opposite effects were observed with PbrGA2ox1 silencing in pear. Moreover, exogenous GA3 treatment aggravated the ROS toxification effect and restrained ABA synthesis and signaling, resulting in the compromised drought tolerance of pear. In summary, our results shed light on the mechanism by which BGAs are eliminated in pear leaves under drought stress, providing a further insight into the mechanism regulating the effects of the GA on the drought tolerance of plants.

Optimal stomatal regulation is important for plant adaptation to changing environmental conditions and for maintaining crop yield. The guard cell signal γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is produced from glutamate by glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) during a reaction that generates CO2 as a by-product. Here, we investigated a putative connection between GABA signalling and the more clearly defined CO2 signalling pathway in guard cells. The GABA-deficient mutant Arabidopsis lines gad2-1, gad2-2, and gad1/2/4/5 were examined for stomatal sensitivity to various CO2 concentrations. Our findings show a phenotypical discrepancy between the allelic mutant lines gad2-1 and gad2-2-a weakened CO2 response in gad2-1 (GABI_474_E05) in contrast to a wild-type response in gad2-2 (SALK_028819) and gad1/2/4/5. Through transcriptomic and genomic investigation, we traced the response of gad2-1 to a deletion of full-length Mitogen-activated protein kinase 12 (MPK12) in the GABI-KAT line, thereafter renamed as gad2-1*. Guard cell-specific complementation of MPK12 in gad2-1* restored the wild-type CO2 phenotype, which confirms the proposed importance of MPK12 in CO2 sensitivity. Additionally, we found that stomatal opening under low atmospheric CO2 occurs independently of the GABA-modulated opening channel ALUMINIUM-ACTIVATED MALATE TRANSPORTER 9 (ALMT9). Our results demonstrate that GABA has a role in modulating the rate of stomatal opening and closing, but not in response to CO2per se.

3-Ketoacyl-CoA synthase (KCS) is the key rate-limiting enzyme for the synthesis of very long-chain fatty acids (VLCFAs) in plants, which determines the carbon chain length of VLCFAs. However, a comprehensive study of KCSs in Oryza sativa has not been reported yet. In this study, we identified 22 OsKCS genes in rice, which are unevenly distributed on nine chromosomes. The OsKCS gene family is divided into six subclasses. Many cis-acting elements related to plant growth, light, hormone, and stress response were enriched in the promoters of OsKCS genes. Gene duplication played a crucial role in the expansion of the OsKCS gene family and underwent a strong purifying selection. Quantitative Real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) results revealed that most KCS genes are constitutively expressed. We also revealed that KCS genes responded differently to exogenous cadmium stress in japonica and indica background, and the KCS genes with higher expression in leaves and seeds may have functions under cadmium stress. This study provides a basis for further understanding the functions of KCS genes and the biosynthesis of VLCFA in rice.

γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) accumulates rapidly under stress via the GABA shunt pathway, which has been implicated in reducing the accumulation of stress-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) in plants. γ-Aminobutyric acid has been demonstrated to act as a guard-cell signal in Arabidopsis thaliana, modulating stomatal opening. Knockout of the major GABA synthesis enzyme Glutamate Decarboxylase 2 (GAD2) increases the aperture of gad2 mutants, which results in greater stomatal conductance and reduces water-use efficiency compared with wild-type plants. Here, we found that the additional loss of GAD1, GAD4, and GAD5 in gad2 leaves increased GABA deficiency but abolished the more open stomatal pore phenotype of gad2, which we link to increased cytosolic calcium (Ca2+ ) and ROS accumulation in gad1/2/4/5 guard cells. Compared with wild-type and gad2 plants, glutamate was ineffective in closing gad1/2/4/5 stomatal pores, whereas lowering apoplastic calcium, applying ROS inhibitors or complementation with GAD2 reduced gad1/2/4/5 guard-cell ROS, restored the gad2-like greater stomatal apertures of gad1/2/4/5 beyond that of wild-type. We conclude that GADs are important contributors to ROS homeostasis in guard cells likely via a Ca2+ -mediated pathway. As such, this study reveals greater complexity in GABA's role as a guard-cell signal and the interactions it has with other established signals.

High salt is a major environmental factor that threatens plant growth and development.Increasing evidence indicates that histone acetylation is involved in plant responses to various abiotic stress;however,the underlying epigenetic regulatory mechanisms remain poorly understood.In this study,we revealed that the histone deacetylase OsHDA706 epigenetically regulates the expression of salt stress response genes in rice（Oryza sativa L.）.OsHDA706 localizes to the nucleus and cytoplasm and OsHDA706 expression is significantly induced under salt stress.Moreover,oshda706 mutants showed a higher sensitivity to salt stress than the wild-type.In vivo and in vitro enzymatic activity assays demonstrated that OsHDA706 specifically regulates the deacetylation of lysines 5 and 8 on histone H4（H4K5and H4K8）.By combining chromatin immunoprecipitation and mRNA sequencing,we identified the clade A protein phosphatase 2C gene,OsPP2C49,which is involved in the salt response as a direct target of H4K5 and H4K8 acetylation.We found that the expression of OsPP2C49 is induced in the oshda706 mutant under salt stress.Furthermore,the knockout of OsPP2C49 enhances plant tolerance to salt stress,while its overexpression has the opposite effect.Taken together,our results indicate that OsHDA706,a histone H4 deacetylase,participates in the salt stress response by regulating the expression of OsPP2C49 via H4K5 and H4K8 deacetylation.

Late spring cold (LSC) occurred in the reproductive period of wheat impairs spike and floret differentiation during the reproductive period, when young spikelets are very cold-sensitive. However, under LSC, the responses of wheat spikelets at various positions, leaves, and stems and the interactions between them at physiological levels remain unclear. In the present study, two-year treatments at terminal spikelet stage under two temperatures (2 degrees C, -2 degrees C) and durations (1, 2, and 3 days) were imposed in an artificial climate chamber to compare the effects of LSC on grain number and yield in the wheat cultivars Yannong 19 (YN19, cold-tolerant) and Xinmai 26 (XM26, cold-sensitive). The night temperature regimes were designed to reproduce natural temperature variation. LSC delayed plant growth and inhibited spike and floret differentiation, leading to high yield losses in both cultivars. LSC reduced dry matter accumulation (DMA, g) in spikes, stems, and leaves, reducing the DMA ratios of the spike to leaf and spike to stem. Plant cell wall invertase (CWINV) activity increased in upper and basal spikelets in YN19, whereas CWINV increased in middle spikelets in XM26. Under LSC, soluble sugar and glucose were transported and distributed mainly in upper and basal spikelets for glume and rachis development, so that spike development was relatively complete in YN19, whereas the upper and basal spikelets were severely damaged and most of the glumes in middle spikelets were relatively completely developed in XM26, resulting in pollen abortion mainly in upper and basal spikelets. The development of glumes and rachides was influenced and grain number per spike was decreased after LSC, with kernels present mainly in middle spikelets. Overall, reduced total DMA and dry matter partitioning to spikes under LSC results in poor spikelet development, leading to high losses of grain yield. (c) 2023 Crop Science Society of China and Institute of Crop Science, CAAS. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Soil micronutrient availability, including zinc (Zn), is a limiting factor for crop yield. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi can improve host plant growth and nutrition through the mycorrhizal pathway of nutrient uptake. Although the physiology of Zn uptake through the mycorrhizal pathway is well established, the identity of the related molecular components are unknown. Here, RNA-seq analysis was used to identify genes differentially-regulated by AM colonization and soil Zn concentration in roots of Medicago truncatula. The putative Zn transporter gene MtZIP14 was markedly up-regulated in M. truncatula roots when colonized by Rhizophagus irregularis. MtZIP14 restored yeast growth under low Zn availability. Loss-of-function mutant plants (mtzip14) had reduced shoot biomass compared to the wild-type when colonized by AM fungi and grown under low and sufficient soil Zn concentration; at high soil Zn concentration, there were no genotypic differences in shoot biomass. The vesicular and arbuscular colonization of roots was lower in the mtzip14 plants regardless of soil Zn concentration. We propose that MtZIP14 is linked to AM colonization in M. truncatula plants, with the possibility that MtZIP14 function with AM colonization is linked to plant Zn nutrition.

Main conclusion Transcriptional regulation of stress-responsive genes is a crucial step in establishing the mechanisms behind plant abiotic stress tolerance. A sensitive method of regulating transcription factors activity, stability, protein interaction, and subcellular localization is through phosphorylation. This review highlights a widespread regulation mechanism that involves phosphorylation of plant TFs in response to abiotic stress. Abstract Abiotic stress is one of the main components limiting crop yield and sustainability on a global scale. It greatly reduces the land area that is planted and lowers crop production globally. In all living organisms, transcription factors (TFs) play a crucial role in regulating gene expression. They participate in cell signaling, cell cycle, development, and plant stress response. Plant resilience to diverse abiotic stressors is largely influenced by TFs. Transcription factors modulate gene expression by binding to their target gene's cis-elements, which are impacted by genomic characteristics, DNA structure, and TF interconnections. In this review, we focus on the six major TFs implicated in abiotic stress tolerance, namely, DREB, bZIP, WRKY, ABF, MYB, and NAC , and the cruciality of phosphorylation of these transcription factors in abiotic stress signaling, as protein phosphorylation has emerged as one of the key post-translational modifications, playing a critical role in cell signaling, DNA amplification, gene expression and differentiation, and modification of other biological configurations. These TFs have been discovered after extensive study as stress-responsive transcription factors which may be major targets for crop development and important contributors to stress tolerance and crop production.

Rice, an important food crop consumed by more than half of the world's population, is also a tradeable commodity. The appearance quality of rice, characterized by grain shape, chalkiness, transparency and colour, greatly influences its commercial value. Generally, varieties with slender grains are associated with good appearance quality (Zhao et al., 2022). Several quantitative trait loci (QTL) for slender grains have been cloned and characterized (Liu et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2015a,b; Zhao et al., 2018). We previously characterized a major QTL for grain shape, slender grain on chromosome 7 (SLG7; Zhou et al., 2015), which is allelic to GL7 and GW7 (Wang et al., 2015a,b). Highly-expressed alleles of SLG7/GL7/GW7 produce slender grains with low chalkiness. SLG7 is valuable in breeding because it has few negative effects on grain yield-related traits. Although the beneficial SLG7 alleles might be introduced by traditional breeding to improve grain appearance, this process would typically take years. Here, we describe a rapid strategy to enhance rice appearance quality by editing the SLG7 promoter via CRISPR/Cas9. We predicted some cis-regulatory elements of the SLG7 promoter using Plant-CARE (Lescot et al., 2002; Figure 1a). To investigate which regulatory element is responsible for SLG7 expression, five target sites (T1–T5) near the predicted elements were selected for gene editing (Figure 1a). These five constructs were independently transformed into Wuyunjing30 (WYJ30), a high-yield japonica variety with round grains. In total, 12 homozygous T-DNA-free mutants were identified, all with one or two nucleotide variations at T1, T2, T4 and T5 target sites (Figure 1b). Interestingly, a 21/34-bp substitution and 14-bp and 36-bp deletions were found at T3 target site in mutants WYJ30-T3-1, WYJ30-T3-2, and WYJ30-T3-3, respectively (Figure 1b). Compared with WYJ30, SLG7 expression in WYJ30-T3-1, WYJ30-T3-2 and WYJ30-T3-3 increased by 34.6%, 47.2% and 66.2%, respectively (Figure 1c). In contrast, SLG7 transcription in the other mutants did not differ from that in WYJ30 (Figure 1c). We named the three novel alleles with increased expression SLG7P-s21 (21/34-bp substitution), SLG7P-d14 (14-bp deletion) and SLG7P-d36 (36-bp deletion; Figure 1b). Compared with WYJ30, the mutants WYJ30-T3-1, WYJ30-T3-2 and WYJ30-T3-3 produced more slender grains (Figure 1c, e). More importantly, appearance quality was greatly improved (Figure 1d). The percentage of chalky grains in WYJ30 was 12.1%, whereas that of WYJ30-T3-1, WYJ30-T3-2 and WYJ30-T3-3 was 10.0%, 7.8% and 4.5%, respectively (Figure 1f). The degree of chalkiness of the mutants was also significantly lower (Figure 1g). These results demonstrate that editing the T3 target site of the SLG7 promoter can produce novel alleles with higher expression levels and better appearance quality. We also measured cooking and eating quality. Compared with WYJ30, the apparent amylose contents of WYJ30-T3-2 and WYJ30-T3-3 were 3.5% and 8.8% higher, respectively (Figure 1h). In contrast, the gel consistencies of WYJ30-T3-2 and WYJ30-T3-3 decreased by 9.1% and 9.5%, respectively (Figure 1i). Viscosity indexes of WYJ30-T3-2 and WYJ30-T3-3 were also changed (Figure 1j). No significant difference was found in apparent amylose content, gel consistency, and viscosity index between WYJ30-T3-1 and WYJ30 (Figure 1h–j), possibly because SLG7 expression increased slightly and grain shape was only weakly modified in WYJ30-T3-1. The grain yield per plant of the mutants did not differ from that of WYJ30 (Figure 1k). The taste values of cooked rice declined slightly in the mutants, but the differences were not significant (Figure 1l). We conclude that editing the T3 target site of the SLG7 promoter via CRISPR/Cas9 can rapidly create beneficial alleles that improve appearance quality without diminishing yield and eating quality. We next analysed the molecular mechanism of T3 target-site regulation of SLG7 expression. A putative AC II element (ACCAATCC) was found near the T3 target site (Figure 1a,b). We used a yeast one-hybrid (Y1H) assay to examine possible interactions between the SLG7 promoter region containing the AC II element and 10 reported transcription factors controlling rice grain size or shape. AH2, a MYB protein, that functions in grain and hull development (Ren et al., 2019), was found to bind to the SLG7 promoter of WYJ30 (Figure 1m,n). Moreover, the interaction between AH2 and the mutated promoters of WYJ30-T3 mutants was significantly weaker than with the wild type (WT) promoter (Figure 1m,n). In Y1H and transcriptional activity analysis, Ren et al. (2019) previously found that AH2 can bind to the GL7/SLG7 promoter and repress its expression. We further confirmed the interaction between AH2 and the SLG7 promoter in an electrophoresis mobility shift assay (EMSA). A shifted band was detected when GST–AH2 fusion protein was incubated with the AC II element-containing promoter segment (Figure 1o). The shifted band was gradually abolished upon addition of 20-, 50- and 100-fold unlabelled competitor oligonucleotides containing the AC II motif. In contrast, competitor oligonucleotides containing a mutated AC II motif had no effect on this band (Figure 1o). Binding capabilities of the mutated promoters of WYJ30-T3-2 and WYJ30-T3-3 were also markedly decreased (Figure 1p). Dual luciferase (LUC) assays further indicated that the inhibitory effect of the AH2 protein on WYJ30-T3 mutated-promoter expression was significantly reduced (Figure 1q). SLG7 expression was significantly increased in the ah2 mutant (Figure 1r), consistent with a previous report (Ren et al., 2019). Taken together, these results indicate that AH2 directly binds to the SLG7 promoter and represses its expression. In addition, the AC II element is an essential target site of AH2. We noticed that the mutated promoters of WYJ30-T3-1 and WYJ30-T3-2 still contained the AC II element (Figure 1b), which might be because the flanking sequence of AC II also affects the binding capability of AH2. Previously, GW8/OsSPL16 protein was found to bind to the GTAC motif of the GW7/SLG7 promoter and repress its expression (Wang et al., 2015a). Here, our results suggest that AH2 acts as a novel negative player that regulates SLG7 expression. The construct for targeting the T3 site was also introduced into Yandao8 (YD8), a japonica variety cultivated around the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China. We obtained two independent homozygous mutants, YD8-T3-1 and YD8-T3-2, having 20- and 44-bp deletions in the SLG7 promoter, respectively (Figure 1s). The SLG7 expression of these two mutants was significantly increased compared with the WT (Figure 1t). As expected, both YD8-T3-1 and YD8-T3-2 produced longer, more slender grains (Figure 1t). Moreover, the chalkiness of milled rice was significantly improved (Figure 1u,v). The apparent amylose contents of YD8-T3 mutants were slightly increased, while the gel consistencies of YD8-T3 mutants were significantly decreased (Figure 1v). Although not statistically significant, the taste values of YD8-T3 mutants tended to be slightly lower (Figure 1v). In summary, we developed a rapid strategy for generating novel beneficial alleles for improving rice appearance quality by targeting the AC II element-containing region of the SLG7 promoter via CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing (Figure 1w). We thank Dr. Kejian Wang (China National Rice Research Institute) for providing the CRISPR/Cas9 plasmid. We thank Dr. Deyong Ren (China National Rice Research Institute) for kindly providing the ah2 mutant. This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFD1200104), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31971917), the Program of Jiangsu Province Government (JBGS[2021]001), the Project of Zhongshan Biological Breeding Laboratory (BM2022008-02), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20200947), the Project of Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Crop Genomics and Molecular Breeding (PLR202101) and the PAPD Program from Jiangsu Government. The authors have declared no conflict of interest. Y.Z., G.L. and S.W. contributed to the original concept of the project. W.T., J.M., B.X., C.Z., Y.W., X.G., S.L., B.W., C.C., J.Z., S.Z., Z.G. and A.Y. performed the research. Z.Y. helped to analyse the data. W.T. and Y.Z. wrote the manuscript. G.L., J.M. and S.W. contributed to the writing. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Using microscopy to investigate stomatal behaviour is common in plant physiology research. Manual inspection and measurement of stomatal pore features is low throughput, relies upon expert knowledge to record stomatal features accurately, requires significant researcher time and investment, and can represent a significant bottleneck to research pipelines. To alleviate this, we introduce StomaAI (SAI): a reliable, user-friendly and adaptable tool for stomatal pore and density measurements via the application of deep computer vision, which has been initially calibrated and deployed for the model plant Arabidopsis (dicot) and the crop plant barley (monocot grass). SAI is capable of producing measurements consistent with human experts and successfully reproduced conclusions of published datasets. SAI boosts the number of images that can be evaluated in a fraction of the time, so can obtain a more accurate representation of stomatal traits than is routine through manual measurement. An online demonstration of SAI is hosted at https://sai.aiml.team, and the full local application is publicly available for free on GitHub through https://github.com/xdynames/sai-app.

The mechanism by which GABA regulates stomatal pore aperture and anion transport activity of ALUMINUM-ACTIVATED MALATE TRANSPORTER 9 is debated.

Using microscopy to investigate stomatal behaviour is a common technique in plant physiology research. Manual inspection and measurement of stomatal features is a low throughput process in terms of time and human effort, which relies on expert knowledge to identify and measure stomata accurately. This process represents a significant bottleneck in research pipelines, adding significant researcher time to any project that requires it. To alleviate this, we introduce StomaAI (SAI): a reliable and user-friendly tool that measures stomata of the model plant Arabidopsis (dicot) and the crop plant barley (monocot grass) via the application of deep computer vision. We evaluated the reliability of predicted measurements: SAI is capable of producing measurements consistent with human experts and successfully reproduced conclusions of published datasets. Hence, SAI boosts the number of images that biologists can evaluate in a fraction of the time so is capable of obtaining more accurate and representative results.

The bzip transcription factors can modulate the transcriptional expressions of target genes by binding specifically to cis-regulatory elements in the promoter region of stress-related genes, hence regulating plant stress resistance. Here, we investigated a stress-responsive transcription factor Osbzip20 under abiotic stresses. The OsbZIP20-GFP fusion protein predominantly aggregated in the nucleus, in accordance with our subcellular localization. Osb-ZIP20 transcript was observed in all vegetative tissues with highest levels being detected in the seed. Tran-scription of Osbzip20 was induced by salinity, exsiccation, and abscisic acid. Overexpression of OsbZIP20 in transgenic rice considerably improved tolerance to salt and drought stresses, as well as increased sensitivity to ABA. Furthermore, abiotic stress responsive genes transcript were found to be remarkably elevated in transgenic rice overexpressing OsbZIP20 than in wild-type plants. SAPK10 was discovered to directly interact with and phosphorylate OsbZIP20. Yeast one-hybrid and luciferase assay revealed that OsbZIP20 acted as a transcriptional stimulator. Interestingly, gel shift assay showed that phosphorylated bZIP20 augmented its DNA-binding affinity to the ABRE element of the NHX1 promoter and induced its transcription. In sum, our findings establish a novel signaling pathway associated with the SAPK10-bZIP20-NHX1 synergistic interaction, as well as a new strategy for enhancing rice drought and salt tolerance.