By regenerating shoots directly from leaf tissue, the workflow reduces the number of culture stages required before whole plants are recovered. The study combines this regeneration route with systematically optimized bacterial infection conditions and antibiotic selection, then confirms the resulting plants through molecular assays. Under the most effective conditions tested, 91.67% of explants regenerated shoots, with an average of 10.33 shoots per explant.

No callus phase was required, and the regenerated plants showed low somaclonal variation, indicating that the direct-organogenesis workflow retained a comparatively stable plant population in these experiments. The bacterial infection stage was optimized in a systematic series of trials. These values describe the conditions identified as optimal within the study’s experimental system; they do not establish that the same settings will be equally effective in every sugar beet variety or laboratory context.

Selection conditions also influenced recovery of transformed shoots. The researchers found that a low kanamycin concentration of 60 mg/L was critical to the optimized protocol, reducing phytotoxicity without compromising selection effectiveness among the conditions examined. The reported workflow began with leaf explants, used direct shoot regeneration after Agrobacterium infection, and applied kanamycin selection to recover plants carrying the introduced genetic material.

Transformation was assessed with three complementary molecular approaches. Polymerase chain reaction was used to identify transgene integration, reverse-transcription quantitative PCR was used to assess transgene expression, and histochemical GUS staining was used to detect reporter activity in transformed tissue. These analyses provided evidence of the presence and expression of introduced DNA rather than relying only on plant survival during antibiotic selection.

Among the transgenic plants produced in the study, 70% acclimatized successfully after transfer from tissue culture. The authors described this survival rate as higher than rates previously reported for Beta vulgaris. The combination of direct shoot regeneration, 91.67% maximum regeneration efficiency, low observed somaclonal variation, molecular confirmation of transgene integration and expression, and successful acclimatization forms the principal result of the research.

The protocol is a laboratory research tool rather than a demonstrated crop-improvement outcome. It may support functional genomics studies by providing a route for introducing and detecting genes in sugar beet, and the authors identify potential applications in efforts to enhance the crop’s genetic value. Within the scope of the reported study, the work offers a streamlined direct-regeneration system with a high shoot yield under the tested culture conditions.

Its immediate value lies in the measured laboratory performance: direct formation of shoots without a callus phase, optimized Agrobacterium infection parameters, effective selection at 60 mg/L kanamycin, molecular verification of transgenic plants and a 70% acclimatization rate. The authors present the procedure as a potential foundation for functional genomics and further genetic studies in sugar beet, while the extent of its usefulness beyond the tested system remains to be determined by subsequent research.

Subject of Research: Laboratory development of an Agrobacterium-mediated sugar beet transformation protocol using direct shoot regeneration

Article Title: Establishment of an efficient and genetically stable Agrobacterium-mediated transformation protocol for Beta vulgaris L. (sugar beet) based on direct shoot regeneration

Article References: Husain, Z., Aqsa, A., Guo, H., Wang, Y., Leng, X., & Liao, H. (2026). Establishment of an efficient and genetically stable Agrobacterium-mediated transformation protocol for Beta vulgaris L. (sugar beet) based on direct shoot regeneration. BMC Plant Biology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-026-10221-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12870-026-10221-5

Keywords: sugar beet, Beta vulgaris, Agrobacterium, plant transformation, direct organogenesis, shoot regeneration, tissue culture, kanamycin selection, transgenic plants, functional genomics, Establishment, efficient

The logic behind the experiment rests on a biological paradox. Soybean, Glycine max, is a staple of global agriculture, supplying vegetable oil and animal feed protein on a massive scale, yet it is notoriously sensitive to the twin abiotic stresses of drought and soil salinity, both of which are expanding as climates shift and irrigation practices concentrate salts in farmland. Deinococcus radiodurans, by contrast, is a microbial celebrity, renowned for its uncanny ability to reassemble a shattered genome after irradiation and to withstand desiccation, oxidative damage, and other assaults that destroy most living cells. Its arsenal of protective proteins has long intrigued biologists, and the gene DR1372 is one piece of that arsenal, implicated in the bacterium’s extreme stress tolerance. What remained unknown was whether that microbial protection could function inside the cells of a crop plant.

To find out, the team cloned DR1372 from D. radiodurans and engineered soybean plants to overexpress it, then subjected the transgenic lines and ordinary wild-type plants to controlled salt and drought treatments. The comparison produced some of the clearest physiological evidence yet that a bacterial stress protein can meaningfully rewiring a plant’s defenses. Under salt stress, the transgenic lines mounted a dramatically stronger antioxidant response than their unmodified counterparts: superoxide dismutase activity rose by approximately 51.8 percent and peroxidase activity by about 93.4 percent relative to wild type. These two enzymes form a critical first line of defense against reactive oxygen species, the toxic molecules that flood plant cells when salt, drought, or heat disrupt normal metabolism.

The damage-side numbers told an equally compelling story. Malondialdehyde, or MDA, is a standard chemical marker of lipid peroxidation—the destruction of cell membranes by reactive oxygen species—and lower MDA means less membrane injury. In the transgenic lines, MDA content fell by 26.7 percent in one engineered line, designated OE-11, and by 41.6 percent in another, OE-38, compared with wild-type plants under salt stress. In other words, the bacterial gene did not merely strengthen the enzymatic antioxidant shield; it measurably reduced the cellular wreckage that salt stress inflicts on soybean membranes, preserving the structural integrity of cells under conditions that normally degrade them.

Drought told a similar tale of enhanced survival. After the researchers withheld water and then rehydrated the plants, the survival rate of the DR1372-overexpressing lines was three times that of the wild type. For a crop whose yields can collapse in dry seasons, that kind of survival differential is not a subtle laboratory effect; it is the difference between a field that recovers after a dry spell and one that must be replanted. The authors caution that these results were obtained under controlled salt and drought conditions, so the next challenge is confirming that the advantage holds in open-field environments, where stress arrives in unpredictable combinations and intensities.

What makes the study particularly valuable to plant biologists is that the physiological measurements were paired with transcriptome analysis, an RNA-sequencing survey that reveals which suites of genes the transgenic plants switch on under stress. That molecular snapshot showed DR1372 acting not as a single-purpose shield but as a broad regulatory influence. Under drought conditions, the gene upregulated photosynthesis-related pathways, suggesting the engineered plants keep their light-harvesting and carbon-fixing machinery running when water scarcity would normally force them to throttle photosynthesis down. Under salt stress, the transgenic plants boosted brassinosteroid biosynthesis, tapping into a plant hormone family long associated with stress resilience, growth regulation, and the alleviation of oxidative damage.

These transcriptomic findings connect DR1372 to well-established threads in plant stress biology. Brassinosteroids have been shown in numerous studies to help plants manage reactive oxygen species and maintain growth under adversity, and preserving photosynthetic capacity during drought is a central goal of crop improvement, because a plant that keeps photosynthesizing keeps growing even as its neighbors shut down. By nudging both pathways upward, the bacterial gene appears to shift the soybean’s stress response from a passive posture of damage limitation toward an active program of maintained function. The combined physiological and transcriptomic data, the authors note, provide new insight into the biological roles DR1372 can play once placed in a plant context, something that had rarely been reported before this work.

The broader significance lies in the strategy itself. Most transgenic approaches to stress tolerance in soybean have drawn on plant transcription factors—regulatory proteins such as GmDREB1, GmWRKY16, or members of the NAC and bZIP families—or on protective proteins like late embryogenesis abundant, or LEA, proteins from plants. Borrowing a gene from a bacterium best known for surviving nuclear-radiation-level damage represents a bolder cross-kingdom bet, and one that appears to have paid off. Deinococcus proteins evolved under selection pressures far more extreme than any soybean field will ever present, and DR1372 evidently performs compatibly within plant cellular biochemistry, interfacing productively with antioxidant systems and hormone pathways that soybean already possesses. The study thus adds to a growing body of work, sometimes described as climate-resilient microbial biotechnology, that treats microorganisms as a deep reservoir of stress-hardy genes for agriculture.

There are, of course, the usual caveats that separate a promising greenhouse result from a farmer’s harvest. The experiments described were performed on specific transgenic lines under laboratory conditions, and yield, seed quality, and agronomic performance in the field remain to be demonstrated. Regulatory approval for a soybean carrying a bacterial gene would face the same public and policy scrutiny as any transgenic crop. Still, the researchers conclude that DR1372 acts as a positive regulator of both salt and drought tolerance in soybean, making it a promising candidate gene for the genetic improvement of abiotic stress tolerance in the crop. As droughts intensify and saline soils spread across the world’s breadbaskets, the idea that a radiation-proof microbe’s survival kit can be grafted onto the soybean genome is exactly the kind of unconventional thinking that stress-tolerant agriculture may increasingly depend on. The research was supported by China’s National Key R&D Program, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and related programs, reflecting the country’s substantial investment in stress-resilient crop breeding.

Subject of Research: Transferring the Deinococcus radiodurans DR1372 gene into soybean to improve salt and drought tolerance

Article Title: Overexpression of DR1372 gene from Deinococcus radiodurans improves the salt and drought tolerance in soybean

Article References: Zhou, L., Zang, K., Liu, X., Wang, P., Guo, W., Su, X., Afridi, M., Wang, J., Lin, M., Cheng, H., & Guo, H. (2026). Overexpression of DR1372 gene from Deinococcus radiodurans improves the salt and drought tolerance in soybean. Plant and Soil. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-026-09038-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11104-026-09038-w

Keywords: Deinococcus radiodurans, DR1372, soybean, drought tolerance, salt stress, transgenic plants, antioxidant enzymes, brassinosteroids, photosynthesis, abiotic stress, plant biotechnology, transcriptomics

The proposal, published in the journal Discover Biotechnology, builds on a growing body of work in plant-derived edible vaccines. The idea is deceptively simple: genetically engineer a plant to produce an antigen, a harmless fragment of a pathogen that the immune system can learn to recognize, and then have people or animals eat the plant tissue. When the antigen reaches the gut, it encounters the gut-associated lymphoid tissue, or GALT, a dense network of immune cells that guards one of the body’s main entry points for pathogens. Studies in both mice and humans have shown that plant-derived antigens delivered orally can stimulate antigen-specific mucosal IgA antibodies as well as serum IgG, the systemic antibody class measured after conventional immunization. That dual response matters, because mucosal immunity is the first line of defense against the respiratory and intestinal infections that cause enormous global disease burden.

Plant-based delivery also solves some stubborn engineering problems. The plant cell wall acts as a natural capsule, shielding antigenic proteins from the acidic environment of the stomach so they survive long enough to reach immune tissue. Even more striking, freeze-dried plant material expressing vaccine antigens has been shown to maintain antigen integrity at ambient temperatures, eliminating the need for refrigeration during storage and transport. For regions where electricity is unreliable and cold-chain logistics are prohibitively expensive, a vaccine that can sit on a shelf as dried powder is a fundamentally different proposition from one that must be kept chilled at every step.

Among the many plants tested as vaccine factories, duckweeds—tiny aquatic flowering plants of the family Lemnaceae—stand out. They pack protein at up to 40 percent of their dry weight, grow at remarkable speed on inexpensive byproduct substrates, and, crucially for vaccine consistency, are so small and anatomically uniform that antigen levels should be even between individual plants. That uniformity addresses one of the biggest weaknesses of edible vaccines in general: dosage. When a vaccine is eaten, the amount of antigen consumed can vary depending on which part of the plant is eaten and how much, leading to inconsistent immune responses. Researchers are countering this with genetic engineering strategies that drive uniform antigen expression in specific tissues, and duckweed’s near-homogeneous body plan gives it a natural head start.

The evidence in animal models is encouraging. Duckweed engineered to express Interleukin-17B has been used as a mucosal adjuvant against infectious bronchitis virus in chickens. When the M2e peptide of the H5N1 avian influenza virus—a sequence so conserved it appears across essentially all influenza strains—was expressed in duckweed and fed to mice, the animals produced anti-M2e antibodies detectable in blood serum. And in an aquaculture demonstration, zebrafish fed transgenic duckweed carrying the LamB antigen from Vibrio alginolyticus were protected against fish vibriosis: when challenged with five times the lethal dose of the pathogen, 63 percent of the vaccinated fish survived, compared with complete mortality in the unvaccinated control group.

So why has no one scaled this up? The answer lies in duckweed’s biology. Because the plants are aquatic, they need vast expanses of water to grow, and in water-scarce regions that requirement can outweigh the benefits of the vaccine itself. Artificial ponds would have to be built, consuming capital and competing with agriculture and urban development for land. Open-air ponds are also vulnerable to contamination by microalgae and fungi, which can render entire batches unusable and impose heavy financial losses. Finally, harvesting delicate, millimeter-scale plants is logistically awkward, and ponds are often located far from the end users, forcing complex delivery chains that erode the cost advantages that made duckweed attractive in the first place.

The research team’s answer is a vertical farming and recirculation system. Instead of spreading duckweed across horizontal ponds, the design stacks multiple layers of cultivation trays, with the liquid medium held at a shallow depth of roughly five centimeters—enough for duckweed, which floats at the surface, to thrive. Water is pumped to the top tray and flows gravitationally through the lower trays back to a reserve basin at the bottom, continuously recirculating and dramatically cutting water use. According to the authors, this vertical arrangement could raise production yield per unit area by a factor of ten to twenty compared with conventional cultivation. Biomass is collected with a filtration-based harvester that returns the supernatant to the basin, minimizing waste.

Vertical farms have a well-known Achilles’ heel: trays lower in the stack are shaded by those above. The proposed solution is elegantly mechanical. The trays would be made of transparent material and mounted on retractable mechanisms along both horizontal axes, with a programmable algorithm adjusting the retraction amplitude and frequency in response to real-time light sensors, so each layer of duckweed gets its optimal share of sunlight. Solar panels integrated into the structure would help offset the energy costs of pumping and automation. The team also proposes siting these systems on livestock and poultry farms, where animal wastewater could serve as the growth medium—turning a disposal problem into a nutrient source while the duckweed simultaneously purifies the water. Settling ponds can reduce turbidity and microbial load in the wastewater before use, and prior studies indicate that duckweed grown on wastewater does not suffer unsafe microbial contamination. Because the system is enclosed, it also limits environmental contamination and gene flow, aligning with global biosafety regulations; regular monitoring for heavy metals in the waste streams would be needed, with quality control applied across the value chain to meet Good Manufacturing Practice standards.

The envisioned value chain runs from molecular bioengineering to the dinner bowl. A gene encoding a pathogenic antigen is introduced into duckweed, the transformed plants are cultivated at scale in the retractable vertical trays, and the harvested biomass is dried and ground into a powder that can be mixed into food or feed—immunizing and nourishing the consumer at the same time. The capital costs of such a system, especially when fitted with solar panels, sensors, and automated retraction, exceed those of traditional greenhouse production, but they are far lower than bioreactor-based manufacturing, and operating expenses can be trimmed by optimizing light regimes. The authors argue that high yields and low downstream processing costs could give the approach a decisive edge in overall unit economics, with lighting costs and protein yield as the two variables that will ultimately determine competitiveness.

Significant hurdles remain before duckweed vaccines reach the main course. Purification steps are still required before the material can be used as a vaccine, and the regulatory pathway for an edible, plant-grown immunization is uncharted territory in most jurisdictions. Yet the convergence of advances in plant biotechnology—improved promoter optimization, enhanced expression systems, and synthetic biology tools—with a cultivation system designed for scale suggests that the gap between laboratory proof and global health impact may finally be closable. If powdered duckweed vaccines can be grown beside the farms and villages that need them, stored without refrigeration, and eaten rather than injected, one of medicine’s oldest tools could take on one of its most persistent inequities.

Subject of Research: Vertical farming of transgenic duckweed for scalable production of edible vaccines

Article Title: Vertical farming of duckweed: advancing edible vaccine production for global health

Article References: Grieš, M., Rosputinský, M., Mećava, M., & del Valle, A. C. (2025). Vertical farming of duckweed: advancing edible vaccine production for global health. Discover Biotechnology, 2(1), Article 14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44340-025-00018-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44340-025-00018-x

Keywords: duckweed, edible vaccines, vertical farming, mucosal immunity, transgenic plants, Lemnaceae, cold chain, wastewater, antigen expression, global health, plant biotechnology, aquaculture

The YUCCA enzymes sit at a critical bottleneck in plant hormone metabolism. They are flavin monooxygenases that function as the rate-limiting step in the indole-3-pyruvic acid, or IPA, pathway, converting IPA into indole-3-acetic acid, the principal naturally occurring auxin known as IAA. Because auxin cannot be synthesized efficiently without them, YUCCA genes effectively control how much of this growth-promoting signal a plant can produce at any given moment. Since the first YUCCA genes were characterized in Arabidopsis two decades ago, versions of the family have been identified in rice, apple, soybean, oilseed rape, peach and many other species, and they have repeatedly been linked to organ formation, vascular development, embryogenesis and stress responses. What remained unknown was how this family looks in mango and what its members actually do.

To answer that question, the Guangxi team mined the published mango genome and identified twelve MiYUCCA genes. Phylogenetic analysis, which compares protein sequences to reconstruct evolutionary relationships, sorted the twelve members into five distinct categories, mirroring the subfamily structure seen in other plants. The researchers then scanned the promoter regions upstream of each gene for cis-acting regulatory elements, the short DNA motifs that transcription factors recognize. This analysis revealed a dense array of hormone-responsive elements alongside motifs associated with abiotic stress, suggesting that mango YUCCA genes are positioned to respond to both developmental cues and environmental challenges. Such promoter architecture provides a roadmap for guessing, and then testing, when and where each gene might act.

Expression profiling across mango fruit development delivered the first major clue. Most of the MiYUCCA genes showed their highest abundance during the earliest stages of fruit growth, after which their expression declined sharply or switched off entirely as the fruit matured. This pattern fits neatly with what is known about auxin’s role in early fruit set, when cell division is rapid and high auxin levels help establish the tissues that will later expand and ripen. It also echoes findings in peach, strawberry and grape, where specific YUCCA genes have been tied to auxin biosynthesis during fruit development and ripening. The message from the expression data was clear: the mango YUCCA family is most active precisely when the fruit is being founded, not when it is filling out.

From the twelve candidates, the team selected two closely related members, MiYUCCA10A and MiYUCCA10B, for functional verification. Using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, they generated transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing each gene, and then extended the work into tomato, a crop species with a very different growth habit and fruit biology. The results were striking. Transgenic plants of both species flowered significantly earlier than their wild-type counterparts, and measurements confirmed that the engineered plants contained elevated levels of IAA, consistent with the introduced YUCCA enzymes actively boosting auxin biosynthesis. Early flowering is a trait of enormous practical interest, because many fruit trees, mango included, have long juvenile phases that delay breeding programs and orchard returns by years.

The stress-resistance results were equally compelling. When the transgenic Arabidopsis and tomato lines were subjected to salt and drought treatments, they tolerated the challenges markedly better than control plants, surviving and growing under conditions that stunted the wild types. This dual function, promoting both development and stress tolerance, is consistent with a growing body of literature showing that auxin is deeply intertwined with abiotic stress signaling. Previous work has shown, for example, that overexpressing Arabidopsis YUCCA6 in poplar and potato confers auxin-overproduction phenotypes along with enhanced tolerance to water deficit, and that activating YUCCA7 in Arabidopsis improves drought resistance. The mango genes now join this list, and they do so in a horticulturally significant species.

But the story was not one of unalloyed benefits. The overexpression lines carried clear reproductive costs. In both transgenic Arabidopsis and tomato, the number of seeds produced was significantly reduced. Arabidopsis pod length was unaffected, but tomato fruit size dropped markedly in the engineered lines. These trade-offs matter. They illustrate a principle that plant biologists have learned repeatedly: hormones as central as auxin cannot simply be cranked up without consequences, because the same signal that accelerates flowering and hardens plants against stress also participates in seed set and fruit expansion. For any future attempt to deploy MiYUCCA10 genes in crop improvement, the challenge will be to capture the flowering and stress benefits while avoiding penalties on yield and fruit quality, perhaps through tissue-specific or inducible promoters rather than constitutive overexpression.

Perhaps the most intriguing mechanistic discovery came from protein interaction experiments. Using yeast two-hybrid assays and bimolecular fluorescence complementation, a technique that reconstitutes a fluorescent protein only when two candidate partners physically meet inside plant cells, the researchers showed that MiYUCCA10A and MiYUCCA10B interact with five mango proteins: MiSVP1, MiSVP2, MiSVP3, MiSVP4 and MiSVP5, all homologs of SHORT VEGETATIVE PHASE, as well as MiFLC, the mango version of FLOWERING LOCUS C. SVP and FLC are central repressors of the floral transition, the genetic switch that converts a vegetative shoot apex into an inflorescence. In Arabidopsis, FLC holds flowering in check until winter cold or other cues remove it, and SVP proteins act with FLC in repressive complexes. Finding auxin biosynthesis enzymes physically associated with these flowering-time repressors suggests a direct biochemical link between hormone production and the floral transition machinery, hinting that MiYUCCA10 proteins may do more than simply raise auxin levels; they may participate in regulatory complexes that decide when a plant commits to flowering.

The study is part of a broader research program at Guangxi University that has systematically dissected mango flowering genes, including earlier work on the CONSTANS family, the SPL transcription factors and the auxin response factor MiARF18A, each of which also produced early-flowering phenotypes when tested in transgenic Arabidopsis. Together these studies are assembling a molecular wiring diagram of how a tropical fruit tree decides to flower, a process that in orchards is governed by season, temperature and tree age. The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Guangxi science and technology funding programs, reflecting regional investment in one of the province’s signature crops.

For the wider research community, the mango YUCCA study delivers three things at once: a complete genomic inventory of a key auxin biosynthesis family in a major tropical fruit, functional proof that two of its members can reprogram flowering time and stress responses in heterologous species, and a physical interaction map connecting auxin synthesis to canonical flowering repressors. The trade-offs observed in fruit size and seed number are a sober reminder that hormone engineering demands precision, but they also sharpen the questions that future experiments must answer. If researchers can find ways to deploy MiYUCCA10A/B activity only where and when it helps, the prospect of mango trees that flower sooner, shrug off drought and salinity, and still bear full-sized fruit moves from speculation toward genuine breeding strategy. In the meantime, the humble mango has offered science a vivid demonstration that a single pair of enzymes can sit at the crossroads of flowering, stress and fruit development all at once.

Subject of Research: Functional characterization of the mango YUCCA auxin biosynthesis gene family and the effects of MiYUCCA10A/B overexpression on flowering, stress tolerance and fruit development

Article Title: Genome-wide analysis of the mango YUCCA family and overexpression of MiYUCCA10A/B confers early flowering and stress tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis and tomato

Article References: He, Z., Hu, W., Qin, L., Huang, C., Li, R., Xu, F., Xie, F., Luo, C., & He, X. (2026). Genome-wide analysis of the mango YUCCA family and overexpression of MiYUCCA10A/B confers early flowering and stress tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis and tomato. Plant Cell Reports, 45(10), Article 304. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-026-03981-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s00299-026-03981-9

Keywords: mango, YUCCA, auxin, IAA biosynthesis, early flowering, salt tolerance, drought tolerance, transgenic plants, Arabidopsis, tomato, MiSVP, FLC

The team began by charting where and when VvbHLH10 switches on. Under laboratory conditions, its transcription was rapidly and strongly induced by both salt and alkali treatments, a pattern consistent with a gene recruited into the front line of the stress response. Intriguingly, the gene is also predominantly expressed in actively growing tissues, including latent buds, young stems and young tendrils, placing it at the intersection of stress defense and development. Using a VvbHLH10-GFP fusion protein, the researchers confirmed that the protein localizes to the nucleus, the expected working address for a transcription factor that binds promoter regions and orchestrates the expression of downstream target genes.

To test function rather than mere correlation, the researchers deployed two complementary experimental systems. The first was homologous overexpression in grape callus cultures, an in vitro system derived from the plant itself. When grape calli engineered to overexpress VvbHLH10 were challenged with salt and alkali stress, they survived and grew significantly better than control calli. Biochemical assays pointed to the mechanism behind that resilience: the engineered tissues accumulated markedly lower levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and malondialdehyde (MDA), two classic signatures of oxidative damage. Because salt and alkali stress disrupt photosynthesis and electron transport, plants typically respond with bursts of ROS that damage membranes, proteins and DNA; reducing that oxidative burden is a central goal of stress-resilience breeding.

The second system took the gene out of grapes altogether. In a heterologous expression approach, the team introduced VvbHLH10 into tomato, a widely used surrogate that allows plant scientists to ask whether a gene’s function is conserved across species. The answer was a clear yes. Transgenic tomato lines overexpressing VvbHLH10 showed markedly improved tolerance to salt-alkali treatment compared with wild-type controls, again with reduced oxidative damage and better overall growth. Cross-species validation of this kind matters for breeders because it suggests the underlying regulatory module is not a grape-specific quirk but a portable stress-protection circuit that could, in principle, be engineered into other horticultural crops facing the same soil chemistry problems.

Then came the surprise. Beyond its protective function, ectopic expression of VvbHLH10 in tomato promoted axillary bud outgrowth and altered the plants’ vegetative architecture. Axillary buds are the embryonic shoots that sit in the angle between leaf and stem, and whether they remain dormant or break out into branches is governed by a tight hormonal and transcriptional network involving strigolactones, auxin and cytokinin. A transcription factor that simultaneously modulates this developmental switch and the stress response is unusual, and it hints that VvbHLH10 belongs to a growing group of bHLH proteins whose roles have diversified beyond single functions. In practical terms, the same gene that helps a vine survive degraded soil could also be tuned to change how the plant allocates its growth, a lever for shaping canopy structure and productivity.

The dual identity of VvbHLH10 fits into a broader emerging picture of the bHLH family. With hundreds of members in most plant genomes, bHLH transcription factors have been implicated in everyone’s favorite processes, from iron uptake and flavonoid biosynthesis to light signaling and hormone crosstalk. Group 9 bHLH factors, the subclass to which VvbHLH10 belongs, have drawn particular interest for their roles in abiotic stress responses. What this study adds is evidence that in a woody perennial crop of global economic importance, one group 9 member can be rapidly mobilized by salinity and alkalinity cues, act in the nucleus to dampen oxidative injury, and at the same time remodel shoot architecture by freeing axillary buds from dormancy.

For viticulture, the implications are concrete. Salt-alkali soils are expanding in many grape-growing regions as irrigation, climate change and intensive cultivation push pH and sodium levels upward, and vineyards on marginal land often suffer stunted vines, poor bud break and yield losses. A gene that improves survival under both saline and alkaline conditions, verified in both homologous and heterologous systems, offers a candidate target for marker-assisted selection or genome editing. Because VvbHLH10 is naturally expressed in latent buds, breeders could also exploit its developmental role to improve bud fertility and branching in varieties where shy bud break limits yield. The authors position VvbHLH10 as a promising candidate for the genetic improvement of both salt-alkali tolerance and plant architecture in grapevine.

The research, led by Rui Xu and Huiping Liu as co-first authors and corresponding author Ke Li, was published open access on 12 September 2026 after acceptance on 9 September, and was supported by the Key Research and Development Project of Shandong Province, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation and several programs at the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The team also released transcriptomic datasets from VvbHLH10-overexpressing tomato as supplementary material, giving the community a resource to trace which downstream pathways the transcription factor rewires, from antioxidant defenses to branching hormones.

What remains to be resolved is the direct target repertoire of VvbHLH10 and how its stress-protective and developmental outputs are mechanistically linked. If the same set of bound promoters underlies both ROS quenching and bud release, that would suggest an elegant coupling in which growth resumption under stress is actively licensed rather than merely permitted. If the two functions run through separate downstream circuits, breeders may be able to dial in salt tolerance without unwanted changes in vine shape. Either outcome broadens understanding of the functional diversification of bHLH transcription factors in horticultural crops and brings grape growers one gene closer to vines that thrive where the soil fights back.

Subject of Research: Functional characterization of the VvbHLH10 transcription factor in grapevine salt-alkali stress tolerance and axillary bud growth regulation

Article Title: VvbHLH10 promotes axillary bud growth and salt-alkali tolerance in grapevine

Article References: Xu, R., Liu, H., Mu, Q., Li, A., Wang, F., & Li, K. (2026). VvbHLH10 promotes axillary bud growth and salt-alkali tolerance in grapevine. BMC Plant Biology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-026-09949-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12870-026-09949-x

Keywords: grapevine, VvbHLH10, bHLH transcription factor, salt-alkali stress, axillary bud growth, reactive oxygen species, abiotic stress tolerance, Vitis vinifera, plant architecture, viticulture, plant molecular biology, transgenic plants