Scientists unravel the two-way molecular inner dialogue of seeds

In Germany, plant physiologists from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, the Universities of Geneva, Lausanne and the University of Lyon have jointly tracked down the internal molecular dialogue between the embryo and endosperm, genetically two different organisms, that is required for seed development.

The communication of the embryo and the surrounding endosperm is based on peptide hormones and therefore functions fundamentally different from most of the control mechanisms of plants that have been researched to date.

“An important property of peptide hormones is that they are formed as inactive precursors and therefore have to be activated by other enzymes before they can work. Only when the peptide is ‘cut’, so to speak, does it fit on the associated receptor and thus trigger a certain reaction. It has only been discovered in recent years which important role peptide hormones play in many regulatory processes in the plant – from fertilization to leaf dropping. Our research team has now managed to fully elucidate such a signal path,” said the three Hohenheim co-authors of the current science publication: Prof. Dr. Schaller with Dr. Annick Stintzi and Stefanie Royek.