Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Osmotic stress threatens plant survival and agricultural safety. Despite the progress made to elucidate how plants sense and adapt to osmotic stress, the knowledge underlying plant osmosensing remains limited. Notably, recent discoveries uncovering protein phase separation as an osmosensing and stress-adaptive mechanism have shed new light on this field. From a combined biological and physicochemical perspective, we dissect how osmotic stress affects a plant meristematic cell, propose macromolecular crowding and water content as previously overlooked osmosignals, discuss their perception by phase-separable proteins, and summarize the features of osmotic stress adaptation mediated by biomolecular condensates. We hope this review provides fresh insights into understanding osmotic stress and plant osmosensing.
Source: New Phytologist
DOI: 10.1111/nph.70899
Authors: Zhenyu Wang, Hongwei Guo
Institution: Southern University of Science and Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Plant Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Awards: G1293565395, G3241130295
OpenAlex ID: W7124269292