Heard it through the grapevine? ABA and sugar cross-talk: the ASR story

Recently, Birsen Cakir et al. have defined a role for the abscisic acid signalling ASR peptide in the regulation of heterotrophic sugar metabolism, highlighting the importance of cross-talk between these signal transduction pathways in a broad species range. Analyses of developmental changes in tomato fruit metabolism suggest that the import of hexoses is also similarly regulated in this species. Taken together with the previously defined characteristics of ASR peptides, these findings should facilitate further dissection of the changing sugar and hormonal signal circuitry during fruit development.