Control of plant development: Signals from without—Signals from within

The powerful technology for transferring functional foreign genes into plants can only express its potential to the extent that our knowledge about signals and signal transmission in plants improves. In higher plants gene expression is regulated by ‘signals from within’ and ‘signals from without’ (e.g., light). Since light-mediated changes provide the basis for much of plant development, photocontrol of gene expression will mainly be considered. The recently discovered ‘plastidic factor’ will serve as the prototype of an intracellular ‘signal from within’. Particular emphasis will be laid on rapid interorgan signal transmission since these novel observations suggest a revision of the presently held concepts about the means of communication within a plant. It will be concluded in the end that the prevailing views about the nature of plants underestimate the degree of sophistication actually exhibited by higher plants.