RNA Glycosylation in Plant Science: Progress, Challenges, and Applications for Crop Resilience and Food Quality

RNA glycosylation is a recently recognized and understudied post-transcriptional modification emerging as a regulator of RNA function, stability, and localization in plants. While glycosylation is well-characterized for proteins and lipids, evidence now shows that RNAs can also carry glycans, reshaping views of plant development, stress signaling, and gene regulation. In crops, glycoRNAs may act as molecular switches controlling transcript fate during biotic and abiotic stress, affecting metabolism, yield, and quality. Detection remains challenging because of their low abundance and diversity. We summarize advances in sequencing, labeling, and mass spectrometry enabling glycoRNA mapping and integration with multiomics to guide crop resilience.