Peanuts are unique—they bloom above ground, but their fruits grow underground. The process of developing these subterranean fruit pods is crucial for peanut production and involves complex molecular actions that coordinate multiple genes in different parts of the plant. Until now, understanding how peanuts develop their fruit pods was a bit of a mystery. We used single-nucleus snRNA-seq to study gene expression during key stages of peanut fruit pod growth. This technique allowed us to look closely at thousands of genes and identify different cell types, like meristem, embryo, vascular tissue, cuticular layer, and parenchyma cells within the shell wall ...More
