Tag: Auxin

Auxin is an extremely important plant hormone that must be precisely controlled. Auxin-like herbicides have been developed that are often more stable than the natural auxins, thus their application can damage the plant. Here, Schulz, Ung et al. investigated how these auxin herbicides move in plant tissues.…

Adventitious roots, i.e. those derived from non-root tissues, are key elements of the plastic architecture of root systems. Auxins and cytokinins are known to induce and inhibit (respectively) adventitious root formation, though the exact mechanism remains to be fully explained. Here, Damodaran and Strader…

Yanxia Zhang1,2 1 Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands 2 College of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, China https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koad317 Background: Soil salinity causes crop yield losses world-wide. Adjusting plant…

The mechanisms of apical dominance and bud outgrowth have puzzled generations of plant scientists, and over a century various hypotheses have been scrutinized. Two main hubs of regulation – auxin canalization (movement of auxin from a bud into the main stem) and the branching transcription factors…

The definition of a phytohormone has not always been clear, though most plant biologists agree that phytohormones can be defined as endogenous molecules capable of triggering signaling cascades and associated responses by binding to specific receptors. They have been extensively studied in flowering…

From food and energy to paper and timber, many industries rely on clonal propagation of tree species. Successful propagation of cuttings depends on adventitious rooting ability, which is known to decline with tree age and to be naturally low in many species of interest. Propagators therefore employ naturally…

Throughout the world, cereal endosperm is a major source of food. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying the import of sugar into the endosperm of rice plants (Oryza sativa) and how these pathways relate to auxin signaling. In this paper, Wu et al. investigate the role of…

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…

The PIN-FORMED family of auxin transporters were first identified through genetic screens of Arabidopsis thaliana in the 1980s. Recessive pin mutants form a flowerless, pin-like inflorescence. Subsequent work showed that the encoded genes are membrane-localized auxin transporters and contribute to the…

Climate change affects rain patterns and hydrological cycles all over the world, exacerbating water scarcity issues. Root branching is altered by local spatial differences in soil moisture. Indeed, when root tips temporarily lose contact with moisture, root branching stops until the appropriate moisture…

Hu et al. demonstrate how the interactions of gibberellin and auxin signaling components regulate cambial activity during wood formation in poplar. By Jian Hu, Changzheng Xu, and Keming Luo  Background: In trees, the vascular cambium is the population of stem cells that laterally divide and as…

One of the longstanding questions in plant biology concernes how auxin coordinates both gene expression in the nucleus and the so-called fast responses at the cell periphery including proton extrusion and cytoskeletal rearrangements. At this point the nuclear branch is well understood, but the cell periphery…

Responses to environmental and internal signals require the recruitment of transcription factors (TFs). TFs recognize simple DNA sequences to activate specific genes that will accomplish the required functions. DOF (DNA-binding with one finger) is a large family of plant TFs that encloses the CYCLING…

Nitrate, the prominent form of nitrogen used by most land plants, is a signal regulating plant growth and development. Nitrate sensing by roots not only regulates root development to facilitate nutrient foraging, but also the growth of distant plant organs. Cytokinin is a mobile signal coordinating nitrate…

Seed germination is can be described as having two phases depending on light availability, skoto- and photomorphogenesis. Skotomorphogenesis, which occurs while the seed is still buried, is characterized by the elongation of the coleoptile and the inhibition of the root system. When the seed reaches…

The versatility of roles that the hormone auxin plays led Paque and Weijers to suggest a new meaning to the acronym IAA (originally- Indole Acetic Acid)- ‘Influences Almost Anything’. It is known that PIN-FORMED (PIN) auxin exporters are responsible for cell-to-cell directional auxin flow and auxin…

Auxin is a key hormone in almost all stages of the plant development and its main natural form is  indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). In Arabidopsis, several gene families are involved in auxin homeostasis. In this work, Hayashi et al. focus on the roles of DIOXYGENASE FOR AUXIN OXIDATION 1 (DAO1) which converts…

Author et al. Huang et al. investigate the roles of auxin in flag leaf angle regulation. Plant Cell. https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koab175 Guoqiang Huang Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic & Developmental Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, SJTU-University of Adelaide…

Deng and colleagues show how the microtubule-associated protein WDL4 contributes to apical hook opening to protect seedligns from damage by soil particles  By Jia Deng, Xiangfeng Wang, Ziqiang Liu, and Tonglin Mao, China Agricultural University Background: When seedlings emerge through the soil…

Plasmodesmata, the tubular connections that form continua between neighboring cells in plants, play vital roles in long-distance transport of ions, RNA, proteins, and small molecules. While it is known that plasmodesmata are permeable to phytohormones, including auxin, the physiological significance…

Zhang, Zhu, Shen, Ji et al. discover a way to enhance nitrogen use efficiency and grain yield in rice. The Plant Cell (2020) https://bit.ly/3s3bLb3  Background: Nitrogen (N), an essential element for crop growth, is provided to plants by external fertilizer application. However, the excessive use…

Auxin shapes the plant body and drives the formation of lateral organs such as roots and ovules. In the current model, AUXIN RESPONSE FACTORs (ARFs) are transcription factors that regulate plant growth by activating signaling in an auxin dose-dependent manner, regulated by Aux/IAA proteins. Here,…

Photosynthesis, in addition to generating ‘food’ for plants, is also known to control root growth, although the mechanism has been unknown. Duan and co-workers identified CYCLOPHILIN38 (CYP38) as necessary for photosynthesis-mediated lateral root (LR) emergence. The chloroplast-localized CYP38 is…

Upon germination in dark, plants adopt a strategy known as skotomorphogenesis, or etiolation, to protect the shoot apical meristem and cotyledon from damage while the seedling moves through the soil. The seedlings de-etiolate when they perceive light and the apical hook and cotyledon open. Wang et…

Author: David S. Favero1 (ORCID: 0000-0002-6879-0323) [email protected] Affiliation: 1RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230-0045 Japan  Main text: As autotrophs, plants must maintain photosynthesis to thrive. In order for this to happen, a plant’s…

A network of transcriptional repressors modulates auxin responses Untangling developmental programs and their methods of regulation are key to understanding the lives of all organisms. In plants, auxin is a hormone essential for plant growth and development. The class A AUSIN RESPONSE FACTOR…

Charles Copeland1 1Department of Plant Microbe Interactions, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, 50829 Cologne, Germany ORCID: 0000-0001-8535-8615 [email protected]   As plants grow, they produce new organs such as leaves, lateral roots, and flowers. Plant development…

Liang et al. demonstrate that auxin modulates sucrose transport to repress petal abscission in rose. The Plant Cell (2020).  https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00695 By Yue Liang, Chuyan Jiang, Yang Liu, Yuerong Gao, Jingyun Lu, Palinuer Aiwail, Zhangjun Fei, Cai-Zhong Jiang, Bo Hong, Chao Ma and Junping…

Author: David S. Favero1 (ORCID: 0000-0002-6879-0323) [email protected] Affiliation: 1RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230-0045 Japan  Plant growth and development are regulated by a complex network of signals, many of which converge at the nucleus and…

During root development, auxin accumulates at the stem cell niche (SCN) located at the root meristem. Both polar auxin transport and local auxin biosynthesis contribute to the auxin accumulation. During root regeneration after wounding, the source of auxin accumulation is still a question. To address…

Nitrogen (N) is the most abundant element in Earth’s atmosphere. However, plants must capture this essential element from soil through their roots. To do this, legume roots forge symbioses with rhizobia to initiate nodule development. Root nodules provide rhizobia an environment suitable for converting…

Dhineshkumar Thiruppathi 1,2  ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2018-3356 Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Saint Louis, Missouri 63132 1Lead author 2Author for contact: [email protected] The phytohormone auxin plays a major part in nearly every plant process, including growth…

Plants have evolved exquisite regenerative capacities to repair wounds or even reform complete organs thanks to the proliferative activity of stem cell niches residing in meristems. Different types of injuries elicit different developmental and regenerative responses. However, a key player seems to be…

The leaf epidermis is composed primarily of undulated pavement cells arranged in a jigsaw puzzle-like architecture, with neighboring cells flawlessly interlacing with one another thanks to synchronized growth, thus making it an ideal model to study morphogenesis regulation. Seeking to better understand…

Among the stresses that sessile plants face, wounding is peculiar as it can be caused by both biotic and abiotic sources. While studies of wounding in animal systems have largely focused on the repair mechanisms, less is known about wound healing in plants. In an attempt to throw light on this, Hoermayer…

Auxin forms spatial gradients that are implicated in organ morphogenesis. However, it is not known how temporal auxin gradients are integrated with the spatial information. In this paper, Galvan-Ampudia, Cerutti et al., showed using a ratiometric quantitative auxin reporter (quantitative DII-VENUS) that…

Auxin controls virtually all facets of growth and development. This plant hormone is sensed by TIR1/AFB F-box receptors which promote ubiquitin-mediated degradation of AUX/IAA transcriptional repressors, releasing ARF transcription factors from inhibition. Phylogenetic analyses divide the ARF family…

Zhang et al. elucidate the role of flippases in the polarity and trafficking of PIN auxin transporters. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00869 By Xixi Zhang and Jiří Friml Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), Am Campus 1, 3400 Klosterneuburg, Austria  Background:…

Auxin regulates various aspects of plant growth and development and it also contributes to plant defense. Auxin activates downstream signaling by promoting degradation of the repressor Aux/IAA proteins to liberate the key transcription factors ARFs (auxin response factors). Pathogens have been known…

Brumos and Zhao et al. developed an improved set of genetic tools to make precise sequence modifications in large DNA fragments and used them to tag hundreds of plant genes, including those involved in auxin production. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00431 By Javier Brumos, Anna Stepanova,…

Gene regulation occurs at multiple levels including transcription. During transcription, transcriptional factors bind to specific target sequence which allows the recruitment of other proteins including RNA polymerase that enables transcription. Understanding such an intricate mechanism allows researchers…

Auxin plays a major role in plant development and can alter the developmental program following the stress response. In this paper, Yamauchi et al., have identified the auxin signaling cascade involved in the development of aerenchyma and regulators of this auxin signaling might also be involved in lateral…

Glucosinolates are secondary metabolites synthesized by plants as a defense compound against pathogen and herbivore. In this paper Salehin et al., have demonstrated regulation of aliphatic glucosinolate levels by auxin signaling that promotes drought tolerance in Arabidopsis. The Aux/IAA proteins are…

Auxin is involved in multiple plant development and stress response which necessitates complexity in auxin signaling. Auxin at a particular threshold in the cells brings together the TIR1/AFB1-5 (TRANSPORT INHIBITOR RESPONSE1/ AUXIN SIGNALING F-BOX 1-5) members and members of the 29 Aux/IAA members bound…

Auxin signaling components are evolutionarily conserved across the land plants and the duplication events in these regulators enabled complexity in development. Auxin regulated developmental programming occurs through the ARF (AUXIN RESPONSE FACTORS) transcriptional factors. Marchantia polymorpha serves…

Guest Editor : Suresh Damodaran I am a postdoctoral research associate in Dr. Lucia Strader’s lab at WUSTL. My primary area of interest is understanding the role of plant hormones in development. I completed my graduate degree in Dr. Sen Subramanian’s lab at SDSTATE.  Twitter: @SureshDamod   Design…

Jing et al. reveal how danger-associated peptides inhibit root growth in plants in response to pathogen attack. Plant Cell (2018) https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00145.   Background: Plants defend themselves against pathogens and pests through an innate immune system that is activated by pathogen-associated…

Zhao et al. identify a key regulator of fruit length variation in cucumber. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00905 By Jianyu Zhao, China Agricultural University/University of Wisconsin-Madison; Li Jiang, China Agricultural University/Nanjing Agricultural University; Gen Che, China…

Wang et al. highlight the importance of lipid protein interactions in spatiotemporal regulation of auxin signalling. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00528 By Peipei Wang and Qun Zhang Background:  Salt stress inhibits plant growth and development, leading to many physiological reactions.…

Radoeva et al. investigate a transcription module that controls aspects of embryogenesis in plants. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.18.00518.   Background: After the start of embryo development in plants, which is marked by fertilization of the egg cell, the resulting zygote divides asymmetrically…