Timing of seed germination is one of the key steps in plant life cycles. It determines the beginning of plant growth in natural or agricultural ecosystems. In the wild, many seeds exhibit dormancy and will only germinate after exposure to certain environmental conditions. In contrast, crop seeds germinate as soon as they are imbibed usually at planting time. These domestication-triggered changes represent adaptations to cultivation and human harvesting. Germination is one of the common sets of traits recorded in different crops and termed the "domestication syndrome." Moreover, legume seed imbibition has a crucial role in cooking properties. Different seed dormancy classes exist among plant species. Physical dormancy (often called hardseededness), as found in legumes, involves the development of a water-impermeable seed coat, caused by the presence of phenolics- and suberin-impregnated layers of palisade cells. The dormancy release mechanism primarily involves seed responses to temperature changes in the habitat, resulting in testa permeability to water. The underlying genetic controls in legumes have not been identified yet. However, positive correlation was shown between phenolics content (e.g., pigmentation), the requirement for oxidation and the activity of catechol oxidase in relation to pea seed dormancy, while epicatechin levels showed a significant positive correlation with soybean hardseededness. myeloblastosis family of transcription factors, WD40 proteins and enzymes of the anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway were involved in seed testa color in soybean, pea and Medicago, but were not tested directly in relation to seed dormancy. These phenolic compounds play important roles in defense against pathogens, as well as affecting the nutritional quality of products, and because of their health benefits, they are of industrial and medicinal interest. In this review, we discuss the role of the testa in mediating legume seed germination, with a focus on structural and chemical aspects.

Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Tennessee State University Nashville TN USA

Department of Botany Faculty of Sciences Palacký University in Olomouc Olomouc Czech Republic

Department of Experimental Plant Biology Charles University Prague Czech Republic

INRA UMR 1347 Agroécologie Dijon France

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Biochemical Analysis of Recombinant Pea Seed Coat-Specific Polyphenol Oxidase (PeaPPO) in Relation to Various Phenolic Substrates

Genetic and transcriptomic analysis of lentil seed imbibition and dormancy in relation to its domestication

Phenylpropanoid Content of Chickpea Seed Coats in Relation to Seed Dormancy

Domestication has altered the ABA and gibberellin profiles in developing pea seeds

The Key to the Future Lies in the Past: Insights from Grain Legume Domestication and Improvement Should Inform Future Breeding Strategies

How Could the Use of Crop Wild Relatives in Breeding Increase the Adaptation of Crops to Marginal Environments?

Anatomy and Histochemistry of Seed Coat Development of Wild (Pisum sativum subsp. elatius (M. Bieb.) Asch. et Graebn. and Domesticated Pea (Pisum sativum subsp. sativum L.)

Effect of Seed Coating and PEG-Induced Drought on the Germination Capacity of Five Clover Crops

Physical Dormancy Release in Medicago truncatula Seeds Is Related to Environmental Variations

The role of the testa during the establishment of physical dormancy in the pea seed

Variation in wild pea (Pisum sativum subsp. elatius) seed dormancy and its relationship to the environment and seed coat traits

Molecular Evidence for Two Domestication Events in the Pea Crop

Genetic structure of wild pea (Pisum sativum subsp. elatius) populations in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent reflects moderate cross-pollination and strong effect of geographic but not environmental distance

Towards Better Understanding of Pea Seed Dormancy Using Laser Desorption/Ionization Mass Spectrometry

A Combined Comparative Transcriptomic, Metabolomic, and Anatomical Analyses of Two Key Domestication Traits: Pod Dehiscence and Seed Dormancy in Pea (Pisum sp.)