GDSL Lipases/Esterases: Versatile Regulators of Plant Development and Stress Resilience

GDSL esterase/lipase (GELP) proteins constitute an evolutionarily conserved yet functionally diversified hydrolase family in land plants. They participate in cuticle and secondary cell wall biosynthesis, seed lipid remobilization, reproductive development, and hormone-mediated responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Despite extensive genome-wide and comparative genomic studies that have categorized large GELPs across numerous crops and model species, only a fraction of members have been functionally characterized in plants, and their catalytic mechanisms and regulatory architectures remain poorly understood. Recent population genomics and cross-species orthogroup analyses in 46 angiosperms have uncovered substantial natural variation within GELP coding sequences and regulatory regions, providing a powerful framework to link allelic diversity to evolutionary trajectories and physiological functions. This review synthesizes current knowledge on GELP evolution, biochemical properties, and roles in development and stress adaptation, and critically evaluates how these insights can be translated into biotechnology and molecular breeding strategies. It highlights emerging resources and concepts from orthogroup-based classification and multi-species datasets that enable systematic discovery of GELP alleles affecting agronomic traits. It further outlines research exploiting GELPs in crop improvement, emphasizing the integration of reverse and forward genetics with multi-omics profiling, biochemical and structural characterization, and gene regulatory network reconstruction. Systematic assessment of the phenotypic impacts of single and combinatorial GELP perturbations on yield, quality, and stress resilience is proposed as a key step toward translating basic insights into breeding and engineering strategies.