Advance reveals rice's response to heat

The discovery of mechanisms that allow rice to sense and react to heat opens up new possibilities for food production in a warming global scenario. Researchers have identified the complete chain of signals that activates the plant's thermal response and have shown that manipulating specific points in this process can increase productivity under high-temperature conditions. The work was conducted by the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Guangzhou Laboratory, and published in the journal Cell. The group led by Lin Hongxuan detailed how rice detects rising temperatures through the activation of the enzyme DGK7, located in the cell membrane. This enzyme generates the lipid messenger PA, which functions as a chemical alert. The compound activates the enzyme MdPDE1, and both move to the nucleus, reducing cAMP levels. This drop reorganizes the expression of genes linked to thermal ...