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Unraveling the paradoxes of plant hormone signaling integration

Abstract

Plant hormones play a major role in plant growth and development. They affect similar processes but, paradoxically, their signaling pathways act nonredundantly. Hormone signals are integrated at the gene-network level rather than by cross-talk during signal transduction. In contrast to hormone-hormone integration, recent data suggest that light and plant hormone pathways share common signaling components, which allows photoreceptors to influence the growth program. We propose a role for the plant hormone auxin as an integrator of the activities of multiple plant hormones to control plant growth in response to the environment.

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Figure 1: Phytohormone structures and functional interactions.
Figure 2: Tissue-specific action of hormones in the root.
Figure 3: Signal integration during the shade-avoidance response.

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Acknowledgements

We thank E. Kaiserli, M. Dreux, U. Pedmale, B. Cole and G. Vert for discussion and comments on this review. Y.J. is supported by a long-term fellowship from the European Molecular Biology Organization and from the Marc and Eva Stern Foundation. J.C. is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Our work on plant hormones is also supported by grants from the US National Institutes of Health and the US National Science Foundation.

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Correspondence to Joanne Chory.

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Jaillais, Y., Chory, J. Unraveling the paradoxes of plant hormone signaling integration. Nat Struct Mol Biol 17, 642–645 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb0610-642

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