How Vines Find and Attach to Trees ^{CEFR B2}

Vines climb by twining and attaching to trees, plants and human-made objects, a behavior that helps them reach light but can harm host plants by blocking sunlight and restricting water and nutrient flow. Understanding this behavior matters because trees and other hosts store atmospheric carbon dioxide. An international team has now described a formula that explains how vines search for and attach to hosts; the study appears in the journal New Phytologist.

The researchers studied common bean vines and emphasized three coordinated processes that enable coiling and attachment: rapid stem elongation, directed movement toward supports, and the production of specialized contacting cells called G-fibers. G-fibers are contractile cells known to help branches bend and were previously found in vine stems.

To probe how these parts work together, the team compared normal beans with plants engineered to produce excess brassinosteroid, a plant hormone that regulates development. The altered vines developed fewer G-fibers, elongated very quickly, and moved without clear direction—what the researchers described as "lazy vines." The study also identified a gene family linked to the formula and named XTH5 as a candidate that is active during G-fiber development; cell wall remodeling by such genes is critical for twining movements.

The research team includes Joyce Onyenedum (NYU), Lena Hunt (NYU) and Charles Anderson (Penn State), with collaborators from the New York Botanical Garden, Brazil’s Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, and the University of Michigan. Funding included a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (240167), and supporting video and images came from the Onyenedum Lab at New York University.