The evidence that FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) protein, and its paralog TWIN SISTER OF FT, act as the long-distance floral stimulus, or at least that they are part of it in diverse plant species, has attracted much attention in recent years. Studies to understand the physiological and molecular apparatuses that integrate spatial and temporal signals to regulate developmental transitions in plants have...

The Cholodny-Went hypothesis holds that gravitropic curvature of a growing plant organ depends on regulated transport of the plant hormone auxin; new studies of the agravitropic mutant aux1 of Arabidopsis provide strong evidence in support of this hypothesis.

Plant growth is tightly controlled through the integration of environmental cues with the physiological status of the seedling. A recent study now proposes a model explaining how the plant hormone ethylene triggers opposite growth responses depending on the light environment.

The plant hormone auxin is central to the regulation of growth and development. Recent work has demonstrated that auxin signalling depends on targeted protein degradation, and in the past year this model has been strengthened. The focus is now on identifying the targets of this degradative pathway, determining how auxin influences the degradative process and linking the turnover of specific pro...

Brassinosteroids (BRs) are plant hormones with versatile roles. Among other functions, the BRs control cell elongation, division, and differentiation events (Gudesblat and Russinova, 2011), fulfill roles in adaptive growth processes (Wang et al., 2012; Fridman and Savaldi-Goldstein, 2013), and participate in abiotic and biotic stress responses (Kagale et al., 2007; De Bruyne etal., 2014;Eremina...

Biological Resources and Post-harvest Division, Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305–8686, Japan (K.M., K.Y., K.Y.-S.); Gene Discovery Research Group, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305–0074, Japan (K.U., K.Sa., K.Sh.); Department of Biotechnology Research, Kazusa DNA Research Institute, Kisarazu, Chiba 292–0818, Ja...

Plants depend on the signalling of the phytohormone auxin for their development and for responding to environmental perturbations. The associated biomolecular signalling network involves a negative feedback on Aux/IAA proteins which mediate the influence of auxin (the signal) on the auxin response factor (ARF) transcription factors (the drivers of the response). To probe the role of this feedba...

We present here the complete genome sequence of Bradyrhizobium japonicum strain E109, one of the most used rhizobacteria for soybean inoculation in Argentina since the 1970s. The genome consists of a 9.22-Mbp single chromosome and contains several genes related to nitrogen fixation, phytohormone biosynthesis, and a rhizospheric lifestyle.

Cytokinins are ubiquitous plant hormones that have dramatic effects on growth and development, but almost nothing is known of their molecular mode of action. Recently, evidence has emerged that cytokinin action may involve a G-protein-coupled receptor and/or a two-component signaling pathway.

The plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) regulates the aperture of the stomatal pore. The recent identification of new intermediates involved in ABA signaling suggests that this complex pathway is organized as a module-based network.