There is a global challenge in the field of plant life sciences - how a single somatic cell develops into a complete plant. On September 16th, the international academic journal Cell published a paper by a research team from Shandong Agricultural University online, revealing the entire process for the first time. According to Zhang Xiansheng, the corresponding author of the paper and a professor at Shandong Agricultural University, plant cells have stronger developmental plasticity compared to animal cells. Under certain conditions, they can develop into embryos without fertilization and possess unique "regenerative" abilities. But how they transform from "ordinary cells" to "totipotent embryos" has puzzled the scientific community for over a century. After 20 years of research, a research team from Shandong Agricultural University found that in the presence of high levels of auxin in the parent cells of leaf stomata, a highly coupled regulatory network of transcription factors is formed, which activates downstream embryogenesis programs. That is, a single plant somatic cell changes its "fate" through gene reprogramming and eventually develops into a complete plant. Zhang Xiansheng introduced that this discovery for the first time defines the molecular pathway of the transformation from "ordinary cells" to "totipotent embryos", which helps to understand the fundamental laws of plant cell development, provides new theoretical support for crop genetic improvement and efficient regeneration, and injects new impetus into the efficient protection of rare plant germplasm resources and the development of plant synthetic biology. The relevant research results are being simultaneously promoted in experiments on crops such as wheat, corn, and soybeans. (New Society)