Nature Plants, Published online: 11 April 2024; doi:10.1038/s41477-024-01667-2

The carbon fixation machinery α-carboxysome of the marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus is composed of an icosahedral-like proteinaceous shell that encapsulates the enzymes RuBisCO and carbonic anhydrase. Our cryo-EM structure reveals how thousands of protein components self-assemble into the α-carboxysome and characterizes the multivalent interactions by which the scaffolding protein CsoS2 crosslinks the shell with internal RuBisCO molecules.

Nature Plants, Published online: 21 September 2023; doi:10.1038/s41477-023-01518-6

Two independently evolved lineages of holoparasites — Balanophora (Santalales) and Sapria (Malpighiales) — display massively convergent characteristics of genome modifications, including gene loss in major pathways, reduction of multigene families and generally relaxed selection pressure. These findings provide valuable new insights into the fascinating biology of parasitic plants.