Plant growth is strongly shaped by environmental conditions like light, humidity, drought and salinity, among other factors. But how plants integrate environmental signals and the developmental processes encoded in their genes remains a mystery.
A new Tel Aviv University study finds that a unique mechanism involving calcium, the plant hormone auxin and a calcium-binding protein is responsible for regulating plant growth. Researchers say that a protein that binds to calcium regulates both auxin responses and calcium levels, creating an interface that determines how plants grow.
The study was led by Prof. Shaul Yalovsky of TAU's George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and published in PLOS Biology on July 11. Research for the study was conducted by TAU graduate students Ora Hazak and Elad Mamon and colleagues. It is the fruit of a collaboration with Prof. Joel Hirsch of TAU's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Prof. Jörg Kudla of the University of Münster and Prof. Mark Estelle of the University of California, San Diego.
Read more at: American Friends of Tel Aviv University