The highs and lows of plant life: temperature and light interactions in development

Plants must constantly respond to changes in the environment whilst maintaining developmental and growth processes if they are to survive into the next generation. A complex network of signals from temperature and light must correctly converge to achieve successful development, through vegetative to reproductive growth. Temperature can be thought of as an environmental factor that provides both 'inductive' and 'maintenance' signals in development. It can stimulate developmental processes such as seed dormancy release, germination and vernalization. However, when temperature is not regarded as inductive, an accommodating network of genes work in concert to ensure growth responses occur regardless of fluctuating microclimate conditions. Many of the temperature-regulated developmental pathways are intimately linked with light signaling. For example, light-temperature interactions are major determinants in the timing of reproductive development. Indeed, the ability to process and react to complex environmental cues is crucial for both normal and adaptive development in a changing environment. These responses are frequently mediated by manipulating the phytohormone network, which serves as a powerful, yet adaptable controller of development. This paper illustrates the influential role temperature perception plays throughout plant development and the close interaction between temperature, light and hormone signaling.     

Temperature-regulation of plant architecture

As sessile organisms, plants have evolved great plasticity to adapt to their surrounding environment. Temperature signals regulate the timing of multiple developmental processes and have dramatic effects on plant architecture and biomass. The modulation of plant architecture by temperature is of increasing relevance with regard to crop productivity and global climate change. Unlike many other organisms, the mechanisms through which plants sense changes in ambient temperature remain elusive. Multiple studies have identified crosstalk between ambient temperature sensing, light signaling, cold acclimation and pathogen response pathways. The regulation of plant architecture by temperature appears to involve the complex integration of multiple hormone signaling networks. Gibberellin (GA), Salicylic Acid (SA) and cytokinin have been implicated in the regulation of plant growth during chilling, whilst a predominant role for auxin is observed at high temperatures. This mini-review summarizes current knowledge of plant growth regulation by temperature and crosstalk with other abiotic and biotic stress signaling pathways.Key words: temperature, architecture, elongation, growth, hormone, auxin, gibberellin, salicylic acid, biomass     

环境因子对植物萜类化合物生物合成的影响研究进展

植物在应对不同环境胁迫时会做出不同的应对措施,其中一种常见的方式是产生次生代谢产物。萜类化合物为植物次生代谢产物中种类最多、结构最复杂的一类化合物,几乎存在于所有植物中,发挥着重要的生物功能,很多具有显著的药理活性,如免疫调节、抗肿瘤、降血脂、保肝等。该文对近年来国内外有关环境温度、紫外线辐射、光照、干旱、臭氧及植物生长发育阶段等环境因素对植物萜类化合物合成影响的研究进展进行综述,探究植物萜类化合物受环境因子影响产生应激反应的一般性规律。     

Integration of light and temperature signaling pathways in plants

As two of the most important environmental factors, light and temperature regulate almost all aspects of plant growth and development. Under natural conditions, light is accompanied by warm temperatures and darkness by cooler temperatures, suggesting that light and temperature are tightly associated signals for plants. Indeed, accumulating evidence shows that plants have evolved a wide range of mechanisms to simultaneously perceive and respond to dynamic changes in light and temperature. Notably, the photoreceptor phytochrome B (phyB) was recently shown to function as a thermosensor, thus reinforcing the notion that light and temperature signaling pathways are tightly associated in plants. In this review, we summarize and discuss the current understanding of the molecular mechanisms integrating light and temperature signaling pathways in plants, with the emphasis on recent progress in temperature sensing, light control of plant freezing tolerance, and thermomorphogenesis. We also discuss the questions that are crucial for a further understanding of the interactions between light and temperature signaling pathways in plants.     

Integration of Light and Auxin Signaling

Light is vital for plant growth and development: It provides energy for photosynthesis, but also reliable information on seasonal timing and local habitat conditions. Light sensing is therefore of paramount importance for plants. Thus, plants have evolved sophisticated light receptors and signaling networks that detect and respond to changes in light intensity, duration, and spectral quality. Environmental light signals can drive developmental transitions such as germination and flowering, but they also continuously shape development to allow adaptation to the local habitat and microclimate. The ability to respond to a changing and sometimes unfavorable environment underlies the huge success of plants. Much of this growth and developmental plasticity is achieved by light modulation of auxin signaling systems. In this article, we examine the connections between light and auxin that elicit local responses, long distance signaling, and coordinated growth between the shoot and root.     

Sensing nutrient and energy status by SnRK1 and TOR kinases

The perception of nutrient and energy levels inside and outside the cell is crucial to adjust growth and metabolism to available resources. The signaling pathways centered on the conserved TOR and SnRK1/Snf1/AMPK kinases have crucial and numerous roles in nutrient and energy sensing and in translating this information into metabolic and developmental adaptations. In plants evidence is mounting that, like in other eukaryotes, these signaling pathways have pivotal and antagonistic roles in connecting external or intracellular cues to many biological processes, including ribosome biogenesis, regulation of translation, cell division, accumulation of reserves and autophagy. Data on the plant TOR pathway have been hitherto rather scarce but recent findings have shed new light on its roles in plants. Moreover, the distinctive energy metabolism of photosynthetic organisms may reveal new features of these ancestral eukaryotic signaling elements.     

SPA proteins: SPAnning the gap between visible light and gene expression

Main conclusion

In this review we focus on the role of SPA proteins in light signalling and discuss different aspects, including molecular mechanisms, specificity, and evolution. The ability of plants to perceive and respond to their environment is key to their survival under ever-changing conditions. The abiotic factor light is of particular importance for plants. Light provides plants energy for carbon fixation through photosynthesis, but also is a source of information for the adaptation of growth and development to the environment. Cryptochromes and phytochromes are major photoreceptors involved in control of developmental decisions in response to light cues, including seed germination, seedling de-etiolation, and induction of flowering. The SPA protein family acts in complex with the E3 ubiquitin ligase COP1 to target positive regulators of light responses for degradation by the 26S proteasome to suppress photomorphogenic development in darkness. Light-activated cryptochromes and phytochromes both repress the function of COP1, allowing accumulation of positive photomorphogenic factors in light. In this review, we highlight the role of the SPA proteins in this process and discuss recent advances in understanding how SPAs link light-activation of photoreceptors and downstream signaling.

     

The interplay between light and jasmonate signalling during defence and development

During their evolution, plants have acquired diverse capabilities to sense their environment and modify their growth and development as required. The versatile utilization of solar radiation for photosynthesis as well as a signal to coordinate developmental responses to the environment is an excellent example of such a capability. Specific light quality inputs are converted to developmental outputs mainly through hormonal signalling pathways. Accordingly, extensive interactions between light and the signalling pathways of every known plant hormone have been uncovered in recent years. One such interaction that has received recent attention and forms the focus of this review occurs between light and the signalling pathway of the jasmonate hormone with roles in regulating plant defence and development. Here the recent research that revealed new mechanistic insights into how plants might integrate light and jasmonate signals to modify their growth and development, especially when defending themselves from either pests, pathogens, or encroaching neighbours, is discussed.     

Light signaling and UV‐B‐mediated plant growth regulation

Light plays an important role in plants’ growth and development throughout their life cycle. Plants alter their morphological features in response to light cues of varying intensity and quality. Dedicated photoreceptors help plants to perceive light signals of different wavelengths. Activated photoreceptors stimulate the downstream signaling cascades that lead to extensive gene expression changes responsible for physiological and developmental responses. Proteins such as ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL5 (HY5) and CONSTITUTIVELY PHOTOMORPHOGENIC 1 (COP1) act as important factors which modulate light‐regulated gene expression, especially during seedling development. These factors function as central regulatory intermediates not only in red, far‐red, and blue light pathways but also in the UV‐B signaling pathway. UV‐B radiation makes up only a minor fraction of sunlight, yet it imparts many positive and negative effects on plant growth. Studies on UV‐B perception, signaling, and response in plants has considerably surged in recent times. Plants have developed different strategies to use UV‐B as a developmental cue as well as to withstand high doses of UV‐B radiation. Plants’ responses to UV‐B are an integration of its cross‐talks with both environmental factors and phytohormones. This review outlines the current developments in light signaling with a major focus on UV‐B‐mediated plant growth regulation.     

Plant abiotic stress: New insights into the factors that activate and modulate plant responses

Plants experience a remarkable range of interactions with the abiotic factors in their environments, both aboveground (light, temperature, mechanical stress) and belowground (soil moisture, nutrients, and mechanical properties). Plants’ abilities to sense diverse environmental parameters and initiate signaling pathways that activate precise responses have crucial implications for their survival. Plant abiotic interactions also remain a fascinating area of research, providing basic insight into plant biology and enabling efforts to improve crop plants.     

Molecular interactions between light and hormone signaling to control plant growth

As sessile organisms, plants modulate their growth rate and development according to the continuous variation in the conditions of their surrounding environment, an ability referred to as plasticity. This ability relies on a web of interactions between signaling pathways triggered by endogenous and environmental cues. How changes in environmental factors are interpreted by the plant in terms of developmental or growth cues or, in other words, how they contribute to plant plasticity is a current, major question in plant biology. Light stands out among the environmental factors that shape plant development. Plants have evolved systems that allow them to monitor both quantitative and qualitative differences in the light that they perceive, that render important changes in their growth habit. In this review we focus on recent findings about how information from this environmental cue is integrated during de-etiolation and in the shade-avoidance syndrome, and modulated by several hormone pathways—the endogenous cues. In some cases the interaction between a hormone and the light signaling pathways is reciprocal, as is the case of the gibberellin pathway, whereas in other cases hormone pathways act downstream of the environmental cue to regulate growth. Moreover, the circadian clock adds an additional layer of regulation, which has been proposed to integrate the information provided by light with that provided by hormone pathways, to regulate daily growth.     

Ambient temperature signaling in plants: An emerging field in the regulation of flowering time

Plants show remarkable developmental plasticity to survive in a continually changing environment. One example is their capability to adjust flowering time in response to environmental changes. Ambient growth temperature, which is strongly affected by global temperature changes, has a profound effect on flowering time. However, those effects have been largely ignored in research. Recent molecular genetic studies ofArabidopsis as a model system have implicated several genes, and have identified a molecular mechanism underlying the responses of plants to changes in ambient temperature. Here, we describe recent discoveries related to ambient temperature signaling and the control of flowering time inArabidopsis. We also discuss current perspectives on how plants sense and respond to such changes.     

Diurnal regulation of plant growth

Life occurs in an ever-changing environment. Some of the most striking and predictable changes are the daily rhythms of light and temperature. To cope with these rhythmic changes, plants use an endogenous circadian clock to adjust their growth and physiology to anticipate daily environmental changes. Most studies of circadian functions in plants have been performed under continuous conditions. However, in the natural environment, diurnal outputs result from complex interactions of endogenous circadian rhythms and external cues. Accumulated studies using the hypocotyl as a model for plant growth have shown that both light signalling and circadian clock mutants have growth defects, suggesting strong interactions between hypocotyl elongation, light signalling and the circadian clock. Here, we review evidence suggesting that light, plant hormones and the circadian clock all interact to control diurnal patterns of plant growth.     

The role of PLDα1 in providing specificity to signal‐response coupling by heterotrimeric G‐protein components in Arabidopsis

Heterotrimeric G‐proteins comprised of Gα, Gβ and Gγ subunits are important signal transducers in all eukaryotes. In plants, G‐proteins affect multiple biotic and abiotic stress responses, as well as many developmental processes, even though their repertoire is significantly limited compared with that in metazoan systems. One canonical and three extra‐large Gα, 1 Gβ and 3 Gγ proteins represent the heterotrimeric G‐protein complex in Arabidopsis, and a single regulatory protein, RGS1, is one of the few known biochemical regulators of this signaling complex. This quantitative disparity between the number of signaling components and the range of processes they influence is rather intriguing. We now present evidence that the phospholipase Dα1 protein is a key component and modulator of the G‐protein complex in affecting a subset of signaling pathways. We also show that the same G‐protein subunits and their modulators exhibit distinct physiological and genetic interactions depending on specific signaling and developmental pathways. Such developmental plasticity and interaction specificity likely compensates for the lack of multiplicity of individual subunits, and helps to fine tune the plants' responses to constantly changing environments.     

The International Symposium on Plant Photobiology 2019: a bright and colourful experience

Light is a key resource for plants as it fuels photosynthesis. It also provides essential information about their habitat. Thus, light tracking is of great importance to plants throughout their life cycle. To gain information about their light environment, plants possess light receptors that cover the perception of the complete light spectrum, including light invisible to the human eye (far-red and ultra-violet light). The information sensed by these photoreceptors is utilized for optimal growth during day–night cycles and in sub-optimal light conditions, such as shaded areas and high-light sun flecks. Plant photobiology research focuses on the perception of light by plants, their developmental adaptations to a changing light environment and the mechanistic and genetic basis of these adaptations. The International Symposium on Plant Photobiology (ISPP) is a biannual meeting where the world's leaders, as well as upcoming talents in the field, gather to share their latest results and discuss future directions. The past edition was held between June 3 and 8 of 2019 in the beautiful PRBB research park building on the seafront of the city of Barcelona (Spain). The ISPP2019 was organized by a gender-balanced committee formed by two junior (Lot Gommers and Jordi Moreno-Romero) and two senior researchers (Jamie F. Martínez-Garcia and Elena Monte).     

环境条件对黄瓜硅吸收分配和果面蜡粉形成的影响

为探明环境条件影响黄瓜果面蜡粉形成的机制,以‘山农5号’黄瓜为接穗,‘黄诚根2号’南瓜(去蜡粉能力强)和‘云南黒籽南瓜’(去蜡粉能力弱)为砧木进行嫁接,在日光温室不同栽培茬口(冬春茬和秋冬茬)下研究了硅吸收分配和果面蜡粉量差异,并在人工气候室内模拟不同季节环境条件[T₁:温度28 ℃/18 ℃(昼/夜),相对湿度55%/65%,光照强度600 μmol·m^-2·s^-1;T₂:温度22 ℃/12 ℃(昼/夜),相对湿度85%/95%,光照强度300 μmol·m^-2·s^-1],研究其对硅吸收分配和硅转运蛋白基因表达的影响。结果表明:日光温室栽培条件下,与秋冬茬相比,冬春茬黄瓜商品成熟果实表面蜡粉量显著增加,其中以‘云南黑籽南瓜’嫁接黄瓜受影响较大,自根黄瓜和‘黄诚根2号’嫁接黄瓜受影响较小;相同栽培季节,均以‘云南黑籽南瓜’嫁接黄瓜果面蜡粉量和器官硅含量最多,自根黄瓜次之,‘黄诚根2号’嫁接黄瓜最少。人工气候室内,T₁环境下黄瓜各器官硅含量、叶片和根系硅转运蛋白基因表达量均高于T₂;相同环境条件下,黄瓜各器官硅含量和叶片硅转运蛋白基因表达量均为‘云南黑籽南瓜’嫁接黄瓜＞自根黄瓜＞‘黄诚根2号’嫁接黄瓜。综上,环境条件改变了黄瓜植株对硅的吸收分配,进而影响果面蜡粉形成,适宜的环境条件有利于减少果面蜡粉量;高温、强光、低湿环境导致黄瓜果面蜡粉量增多,砧木对嫁接黄瓜硅吸收和果面蜡粉形成有显著影响。     

Identification and characterization of putative CIPK genes in maize

Calcium(Ca) plays a crucial role as a second messenger in intracellular signaling elicited by developmental and environmental cues. Calcineurin B-like proteins(CBLs) and their target proteins,CBL-interacting protein kinases(CIPKs) have emerged as a key Ca~(2+)-mediated signaling network in response to stresses in plants.Bioinformatic analysis was used to identify 43 putative ZmCIPK(Zea mays CIPK) genes in the genome of maize inbred line B73.Based on gene structures,these ZmCIPKs were divided into intron-...