@article{292ebde05bf546bbbd5af3368da761f9,
title = "Plant development: Sizing up the competition with strigolactones",
abstract = "Strigolactones are small molecules secreted by plants into the soil to attract symbiotic fungal partners. Two studies describe how plants can predict future competition from neighbours by sensing the levels of strigolactones in the root zone.",
author = "Mark Waters",
note = "Funding Information: The first SL to be discovered, strigol, was identified as a plant-derived compound that triggered the germination of seeds of the root-parasite witchweed (Striga spp.)8. We now know that SLs are an important chemoattractant for AMF4, which colonise the roots of ∼70% of land plants and assist in the scavenging of soil nutrients in exchange for carbon from the plant9. Soon thereafter, genetic studies in garden pea (Pisum sativum), Arabidopsis thaliana, and rice (Oryza sativa) converged upon SLs as the elusive carotenoid-derived molecule that is biosynthesised in the roots and that can inhibit shoot branching10,11. A great deal has since been learned about how plants biosynthesise, recognise and respond to SLs, as well as how these systems evolved5. Chemically speaking, the so-called canonical SLs comprise an invariant butenolide moiety attached via an enol-ether bridge to a tricyclic {\textquoteleft}ABC{\textquoteright} core, which is variable in structure12 (Figure 1A). There are, however, a number of non-canonical compounds with SL-like activity that lack the ABC core but retain the essential butenolide moiety. The unifying feature of both canonical and non-canonical SLs is that they are all derivatives of an apocarotenoid compound called carlactone13. Intriguingly, canonical SLs have been found in root exudates from a wide taxonomic range of land plants but have been recalcitrant to detection in plants that do not support symbiosis with AMF. These observations support recent data suggesting that canonical SLs serve as ancient rhizosphere signals, while non-canonical SLs are plant hormones for within-plant signalling14,15. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 Elsevier Inc.",
year = "2022",
month = aug,
day = "22",
doi = "10.1016/j.cub.2022.06.093",
language = "English",
volume = "32",
pages = "R884--R886",
journal = "Current Biology",
issn = "0960-9822",
publisher = "Cell Press",
number = "16",
}