Breakthrough in the understanding of plant growth and development

Plants grow through cell division, cell elongation and differentiation of cells within tissues. These processes provide the structure of the plant. At the same time, plants can react very quickly to stimuli: the shoot bends towards light, and roots respond to gravity. “For the first time, we begin to understand how those quick responses can combine with the processes that preserve the structure of the plant, in an interplay between the hormone auxin and regulatory proteins”, says Professor Ben Scheres of Wageningen University. The breakthrough was published in the prestigious journal Nature.

The plant hormone auxin is a jack of all trades: it has a multitude of tasks in the plant. “It influences the development of stem cells into differentiated tissues, but also plays a role in rapid responses to changes in the environment. How can a signal molecule control such very different processes? That is the topic of our research”, explains Scheres. He has been studying plant growth regulation for 20 years, initially at Utrecht University, and now at the Plant Developmental Biology Group of Wageningen University. One of his postdoctoral researchers has continued the published work as group leader in Finland.

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