From Wound Perception to Organogenesis: New Routes to Efficient Plant Transformation

• Wound-induced signaling pathways are emerging as powerful regulators of plant regeneration and organogenesis. • Recent studies reveal that activation of local wound signals, including WIND1-mediated pathways, significantly enhances regeneration capacity. • Harnessing these mechanisms provides new routes to improve transformation efficiency and genome editing in crop plants. Methods for promoting regeneration in plants could help in enhancing the transformation efficiency of recalcitrant crops to generate transgenic and gene-edited plants. Identification of the signal related to wound-induced defense and regeneration is very important for dramatic increases in regeneration capacity. In a recent study, Kshetry et al reported how this wound-induced regeneration pathway involving WIND1 and its associated downstream morphogens and developmental regulators (DRs) improves in-planta transformation into tobacco, tomato, and soybean. This study also highlights how by utilizing a synthetic transcription cascade the generation of transgenic and gene-edited plants can be improved without reliance on tissue culture. In another study, Yang et al. reported that a locally acting small peptide, REF1, promotes regeneration in tomato, soybean, and wheat, via the activation of the master transcription factor WIND1. These studies show the potential for the use of wound signals for the improvement of regeneration and organogenesis.in plants.