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  • Developmental biology
  • Cell & molecular biology

Published online: 26 March 2008 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2008.66

Plant development: Day and night

Jasmine Farsarakis

Introduction

© (2008) istockphoto.com/Dra Schwartz

When plants sense sunlight, they produce gibberellins (GAs) — plant hormones that play an essential role in many cellular pathways of plant development, such as germination and stem elongation. Scientists have suggested that the abundance of DELLA proteins, which are GA-pathway repressors, has a direct effect on responses to light in plants. An international team of researchers led by Xingwang Deng¹ has found evidence to support this suggestion.

By generating antibodies to the various DELLA proteins in Arabidopsis thaliana, the researchers studied the effects of GA treatment on plant cells in vivo. They found that one hour of GA treatment eliminated the presence of DELLA proteins, but this effect could be prevented by treatment with a proteasome-specific inhibitor. In cells without GA treatments, there was an increased level of DELLA proteins near the nucleus. These DELLA proteins would then disrupt phytochrome-interacting factor 3 (PIF3), which plants use to activate light-activated pathways for stem elongation.

The findings describe a nuclear-protein interaction cascade, and provide insights into the mechanisms that plants use to regulate their biological clocks.

The authors of this work are from:
Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China; Peking–Yale Joint Center for Plant Molecular Genetics and Agrobiotechnology, and National Laboratory for Protein Engineering and Plant Genetic Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China; Departamento Genética Molecular de Plantas, Centro Nacional de Biotecnología-CSIC, Campus Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Institut für Biologie II/Botanik, Albert Ludwigs Universität, Freiburg, Germany; Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Reference

1. Feng, S. et al. Coordinated regulation of Arabidopsis thaliana development by light and gibberelins. Nature 451, 475–480 (2008). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |