Smart Scaffolds: How WD40 Proteins Integrate Plant Development, Metabolism, and Stress Adaptation.

Dof transcription factors: central regulators coordinating plant growth, stress adaptation, and beyond

The DNA-binding with one finger (Dof) family comprises plant-specific transcription factors that serve as key hubs regulating plant growth, development, stress responses, and metabolism. Advances in multi-species genome sequencing have deepened our understanding of the structure and function of this family. This review systematically describes the conserved structural features of Dof proteins and their expansion patterns during plant evolution. It further focuses on the molecular mechanisms and regulatory networks underlying organ development, growth coordination, stress responses, and metabolic regulation. Comprehensive analysis reveals that the Dof family exhibits conserved core functions across evolution, along with pronounced species specificity. In terms of regulatory mechanisms, Dof proteins integrate external signals and internal transduction pathways to coordinate growth, development, and stress defense. They achieve this through multiple modes, including transcriptional regulation of target genes and protein–protein interactions. This review highlights the pivotal roles of the Dof family across diverse developmental stages and physiological processes. It thus provides a theoretical foundation for dissecting its biological mechanisms and advancing molecular breeding in crops.

B-Box (BBX) proteins and transcriptional regulation: dynamics, signaling and functions in plants.

Transcriptional regulation is the cornerstone of plant developmental plasticity and environmental resilience. Central to these processes are the B-Box (BBX) proteins, a family of zinc-finger transcription factors that have emerged as pivotal signaling hubs. While their roles were initially defined through light signaling and photoperiodic flowering in Arabidopsis, recent advances have repositioned BBX proteins as integrative nodes across a vast array of physiological processes, including seed germination, thermomorphogenesis, shade avoidance and senescence, as well as responses to both abiotic and biotic stresses. The remarkable functional diversity of BBX proteins emerges from a highly orchestrated, hierarchical regulatory landscape. This review synthesizes recent progress in how BBX activity is modulated through chromatin remodeling, alternative splicing and E3-ligase-mediated protein stability, among other mechanisms. We propose that understanding BBX function requires a shift from identifying isolated target genes to decoding the combinatorial logic of their interactions. Deciphering this interactome under fluctuating environments not only deepens our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms regulating plant plasticity but also identifies highly promising targets for the precision breeding of climate-resilient crops.

Focus on DnaJ protein research from Arabidopsis to crop improvement

A review of recent advances in the structural diversity, evolutionary distribution, and functional specialization of DnaJ proteins across model plants and crops highlights DnaJ proteins as promising molecular targets for crop improvement and climate‐smart agriculture aimed at increasing productivity, stress tolerance, and postharvest performance under changing environmental conditions.

Regulatory Mechanisms of Calcineurin B-Like Proteins (CBLs) in Plant Stress Tolerance: A Review

Transcription Factors Regulating Nutrient and Ion Uptake in Plants Exposed to Abiotic and Biotic Stress Conditions.

Plant growth and productivity are severely constrained by abiotic and biotic stresses, which disrupt essential physiological processes, particularly nutrient and ion homeostasis. In response to these challenges, plants activate sophisticated molecular networks, with transcription factors (TFs) emerging as central regulators that integrate stress signals with nutrient management. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the pivotal role of TFs in coordinating stress resilience and nutrient acquisition. It elaborates on how distinct TF families, including AP2/ERF, NAC, MYB, and bZIP, are regulated through complex signal transduction pathways involving reactive oxygen species (ROS), phytohormones, and second messengers. Upon activation, these TFs directly modulate the expression of genes encoding nutrient transporters, ion channels, and detoxification proteins, thereby maintaining cellular ion balance and facilitating nutrient uptake under stress. Notably, specific TFs such as NLP7, HY5, and STOP1 are highlighted for their direct role in regulating the homeostasis of key nutrients like nitrate, phosphate, and metals, linking nutrient signaling to adaptive responses. On the other hand, key TF families, including WRKY, MYB, bZIP, AP2/ERF, and NAC, have also been studied for their role in biotic stress tolerance. Despite these advances, the identification of TFs that specifically govern nutrient transport under combined stresses remains limited. We conclude that advanced functional genomics, machine learning, and genetic engineering to manipulate these master regulatory networks present a transformative strategy for developing next-generation crops with enhanced nutrient use efficiency and climate resilience, which is critical for achieving global food security.

bHLH Family Transcription Factors: Molecular Switches in Plant Specialized Metabolism

Highlights What are the main findings? Plant bHLH factors regulate specialized metabolism through direct, cascade, or hybrid architectures centered on signal-responsive modules such as JA-JAZ-MYC. Cross-species comparison identifies six determinants of bHLH output: signal gating, pathway topology, promoter and partner logic, spatial competence, feedback regulation, and evidence context. What are the implications of the main findings? Effective metabolic engineering should match the intervention to the pathway bottleneck and combine transcription-factor tuning with tissue-specific control, precursor supply, transport, and storage capacity. This framework supports more precise improvement of crop defense, food quality, and medicinal-metabolite production while minimizing growth penalties and toxicity. Abstract Plant specialized metabolites connect genetic programs and environmental responses with ecologically and economically valuable natural products. Their accumulation is rarely constitutive, varying instead with tissue identity, developmental stage, stress exposure, hormone signaling, and cellular storage capacity. This review examines basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors as regulatory switch points in plant specialized metabolism, with emphasis on the jasmonate-JAZ-MYC module. In resting tissues, JAZ repressors constrain MYC/bHLH activity; after wounding, herbivory, pathogen challenge, or elicitation, jasmonoyl-isoleucine triggers COI1-dependent JAZ turnover, releasing MYC factors to bind E-box/G-box motifs, recruit coregulators such as MED25, and activate biosynthetic genes or downstream transcription-factor cascades. Plant lineages have repeatedly adapted this regulatory logic to control terpenoids, alkaloids, phenylpropanoids, flavonoids, glucosinolates, phytoalexins, and related metabolites. Comparative examples include Arabidopsis sesquiterpenes and glucosinolates, Taxus taxanes, Artemisia artemisinin, Catharanthus terpenoid indole alkaloids, Salvia phenolic acids and tanshinones, Ginkgo terpene trilactones, rice diterpenoid phytoalexins, and cotton gossypol. Across these systems, bHLH output depends on dimer choice, promoter grammar, chromatin accessibility, hormone crosstalk, partner transcription factors, and cell-type competence. Six shared principles emerge: signal gating, topology matched to pathway architecture, partner-dependent promoter decoding, spatial competence, feedback rheostats, and evidence-dependent transferability. We further discuss evidence standards, multi-omics-guided factor discovery, miRNA-mediated post-transcriptional control, and engineering strategies for crop defense, food quality, medicinal-metabolite production, and synthetic biology. Unlike pathway- or MYC2-centered surveys, this review organizes the literature within a direct–cascade–hybrid framework that integrates promoter grammar, spatial competence, storage anatomy, and an explicit evidence hierarchy.