In plants, sugars are the key source of energy and metabolic building blocks. The systemic transport of sugars is essential for plant growth and morphogenesis. Plants evolved intricate molecular networks to effectively distribute sugars. The dynamic distribution of these osmotically active compounds is a handy tool for regulating cell turgor pressure, an instructive force in developmental biology. In this study, we have investigated the molecular mechanism behind the dual role of the receptor-like kinase CANAR. We functionally characterized a long non-coding RNA, CARMA, as a negative regulator of CANAR. Sugar-responsive CARMA specifically fine-tunes CANAR expression in the phloem, the route of sugar transport. Our genetic, molecular, microscopy, and biophysical data suggest that the CARMA-CANAR module controls the shoot-to-root phloem transport of sugars, allows cells to flexibly adapt to the external osmolality by appropriate water uptake, and thus adjust the size of vascular cell types during organ growth and development. Our study identifies a nexus of plant vascular tissue formation with cell internal pressure monitoring, revealing a novel functional aspect of long non-coding RNAs in developmental biology.

Center of Plant Structural and Functional Genomics Institute of Experimental Botany Czech Academy of Sciences Šlechtitelů 31 77900 Olomouc Czech Republic

Department of Biophysics Faculty of Science Palacky University Slechtitelu 27 77900 Olomouc Czech Republic

Department of Molecular Cell and Systems Biology University of California Riverside CA 92521 USA

Department of Molecular Cell and Systems Biology University of California Riverside CA 92521 USA; Department of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology University of California Los Angeles Los Angeles CA 90095 USA

Department of Plant Molecular Biology University of Lausanne 1015 Lausanne Switzerland

Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter Institute for Plant Sciences Molecular Biology Karlsruhe Institute of Technology 76131 Karlsruhe Germany

Laboratory of Growth Regulators Czech Academy of Sciences Institute of Experimental Botany and Palacky University Slechtitelu 27 77900 Olomouc Czech Republic

Laboratory of Seeds Molecular Biology Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics Polish Academy of Sciences Pawinskiego 5a 02 106 Warsaw Poland

Mol Plant. 2024 Dec 2;17(12):1803-1804. doi: 10.1016/j.molp.2024.11.005. PubMed

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