Sugar codes for plant fitness: arabinosylation in small peptide signaling.

Arabinosylation, a critical post-translational modification (PTM) ubiquitous in plants, has received insufficient scientific attention relative to its biological significance. While small secreted peptides (SSPs) are crucial signaling molecules that orchestrate plant growth, stress adaptation, and host-microbe communication, emerging evidence positions arabinosylation as a key regulatory mechanism modulating SSP functionality. In this review we synthesize current knowledge on arabinosylated SSPs, emphasizing their regulatory roles in developmental programming and reprogramming, stress resilience, and symbiotic interactions. We discuss biochemical mechanisms through which arabinosylation enhances peptide biological activity or stability, including receptor interaction modulation, structural stabilization, and proteolytic resistance. We also evaluate future opportunities for leveraging arabinosylation engineering in developing climate-smart crops through targeted arabinosylated SSPs.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Trends in Plant Science

• Publication date

  2025-08-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.tplants.2025.07.011PMID 40849284
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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