Plants use molecular mechanisms mediated by biomolecular condensates to integrate environmental cues with development.
This review highlights recent literature on biomolecular condensates in plant development and discusses challenges for fully dissecting their functional roles. Plant developmental biology has been inundated with descriptive examples of biomolecular condensate formation, but it is only recently that mechanistic understanding has been forthcoming. Here, we discuss recent examples based on current findings in plant and cell biology at different stages of the plant life cycle. We group these examples based on putative molecular functions, including: sequestering interacting components, enhancing dwell time, and interacting with cytoplasmic biophysical properties in response to environmental change. We explore how these mechanisms modulate plant development in response to environmental inputs and discuss challenges and opportunities for further research into deciphering molecular mechanisms to better understand the diverse roles that biomolecular condensates exert on life.