What can hornworts teach us?

Eftychios Frangedakis; Alan O Marron; Manuel Waller; Anna Neubauer; Sze Wai Tse; Yuling Yue; Stephanie Ruaud; Lucas Waser; Keiko Sakakibara; Péter Szövényi

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1108027

What can hornworts teach us?

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Mar 8:14:1108027. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1108027. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Eftychios Frangedakis¹, Alan O Marron¹, Manuel Waller^{2

3}, Anna Neubauer^{2

3}, Sze Wai Tse¹, Yuling Yue^{2

3}, Stephanie Ruaud^{2

3}, Lucas Waser^{2

3

4}, Keiko Sakakibara⁵, Péter Szövényi^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
² Department of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
³ Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center, Zurich, Switzerland.
⁴ Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland.
⁵ Department of Life Science, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan.

Abstract

The hornworts are a small group of land plants, consisting of only 11 families and approximately 220 species. Despite their small size as a group, their phylogenetic position and unique biology are of great importance. Hornworts, together with mosses and liverworts, form the monophyletic group of bryophytes that is sister to all other land plants (Tracheophytes). It is only recently that hornworts became amenable to experimental investigation with the establishment of Anthoceros agrestis as a model system. In this perspective, we summarize the recent advances in the development of A. agrestis as an experimental system and compare it with other plant model systems. We also discuss how A. agrestis can help to further research in comparative developmental studies across land plants and to solve key questions of plant biology associated with the colonization of the terrestrial environment. Finally, we explore the significance of A. agrestis in crop improvement and synthetic biology applications in general.

Keywords: RNA editing; evo-devo; land plants; plant-cyanobacteria symbiosis; plant-mycorrhizal symbiosis; polyplastidy; pyrenoid; terrestrialization of plants.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

JSPS Bridge Fellowship (BR220302) to EF. This project was carried out as part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) priority program 2237: “MAdLand—Molecular Adaptation to Land: plant evolution to change” (http://madland.science), through which PS received financial support (PSLJ1111/1). Additional funding was received from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant nos. 160004, 184826, and 212509 to PS); project funding through the University Research Priority Program “Evolution in Action” of the University of Zurich to PS and LW; a Georges and Antoine Claraz Foundation grant to AN, YY, SR, LW, MW, and PS; UZH Forschungskredit Candoc grant no. FK-19-089 and an SNSF Doc.Mobility Projekt grant no. P1ZHP3_200030 to MW, and FK-22-098 to SR. AOM was funded by the BBSRC/EPSRC OpenPlant Synthetic Biology Research Centre Grant BB/L014130/1. This work was also supported by a Foundation of German Business (SDW) Scholarship to AN. SWT is funded by the Doris Zimmern HKU-Cambridge Hughes Hall Scholarship. KS was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP22H05177.