The Meyer Lab seeks to advance our understanding of the switch-like behavior of plant PrLPs in facilitating environmentally-induced molecular memory. Prions are transmissible proteins that may adopt various self-propagating conformations. Besides being agents of disease, prions in yeast underlie epigenetic phenotypes that may drive adaptation to changing environments. Given the abundance of prion-like proteins (PrLPs) across kingdoms, an intriguing hypothesis is that PrLPs may function broadly as ‘memory molecules’. Using their switch-like behaviors and involvement in nucleic acid metabolism, these proteins could establish and/or maintain changes in transcription, RNA processing, and translation to help organisms undergo environmentally-induced developmental transitions. The Arabidopsis proteome encodes over 400 putative PrLPs that are annotated to facilitate environmentally-regulated gene expression, signaling, or RNA modification. A small number of these PrLPs have been studied more extensively and have been demonstrated to phase separate into liquid- or solid-like condensates in heterologous systems. However, it is unclear whether PrLPs behave like true prions in planta to enact molecular memory.