Review: Rapid auxin signaling: Unknowns old and new

You might think you’ve read enough about auxin, but I recommend you take this opportunity to read one more article, this very interesting and enjoyable review by Fielder and Friml. Auxin has figured prominently in both the classical and molecular eras of plant biology. However, the exciting findings of auxin’s transcriptional responses through the TIR1 auxin receptor relatively early in the molecular era really dominated the field over the past 25 years, overshadowing the classically-described “fast” auxin responses that aren’t explained by transcription. Further complications arose when it was revealed that the effects ascribed to Auxin Binding Protein 1 through analysis of the Arabidopsis abp1 mutant were not quite as they seemed. It’s not an overstatement to say, as the authors do, that this finding “poured fuel on the fire of a community that was already, as human nature sometimes dictates, divided by its favoritism for either ABP1 or TIR1 as the more relevant auxin receptor.” That’s enough foreshadowing, so please turn to the article for the rest of this elegantly constructed update. (Summary by Mary Williams @PlantTeaching) Curr. Opin. Plant Biol. 10.1016/j.pbi.2023.102443