© Meng Chen/Duke University
Plants without a functional HMR gene (shown on the right) are unable to respond to light. They fail to produce chlorophyll and grow into spindly albino seedlings that die young. Phytochrome nuclear bodies, which contain activated phytochrome and HEMERA are shown in the background (blue dots).
Plants without a functional HMR gene (shown on the right) are unable to respond to light. They fail to produce chlorophyll and grow into spindly albino seedlings that die young. Phytochrome nuclear bodies, which contain activated phytochrome and HEMERA are shown in the background (blue dots).
"Light is probably the most important environmental cue for a plant," says Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Joanne Chory, Ph.D., professor and director of the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory and holder of the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair. "Understanding how light signaling triggers morphological changes in the plant will have a really big impact on every facet of plant biology."
Most animals are able to move away from unfavorable conditions, but plants are sessile and must cope with whatever comes their way. "They have developed an amazing plasticity to deal with varying environmental conditions," says first author Meng Chen, Ph.D., formerly a postdoctoral researcher in the Chory laboratory and now an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Duke University.
Their findings, which are published in the June 25 issue of Cell, bring scientists a photon closer to being able to harness plants' phenotypic plasticity to help boost agricultural yields and manage weeds under challenging growing conditions.
