Research Results of NJFU Published in ‘Plant Cell’

Recently, Professor Ye Yajin's research team, led by Academician Cao Fuliang from our university, published a research paper titled "The breakdown of Lipid droplets by SDP1 Triacylglycerol Lipase contributes to cuticle assembly in Poplar" in Plant Cell. This study, focusing on poplar trees, is the first to reveal that plant lipid droplets (LDs), besides serving as energy reserves, also directly participate in the construction of plant epidermal cuticles during drought resistance, providing new metabolic engineering insights for enhancing the drought resistance of forest trees. Our university is the sole completing institution of this research, with Professor Ye Yajin as the corresponding author and Associate Professor Zhou Lijuan, master's student Xu Yingying, Cao Rui, and Li Jincheng as co-first authors. The research work was funded by the National Science and Technology Major Special Project for Agricultural Biological Breeding and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.