Every seed begins its life as the subject of a war—between light and gibberellins, a type of plant hormone, which work antagonistically to guide seedling development. In short, gibberellins promote the early elongation of a plant’s stem, while light inhibits it and helps stunt stem growth. Despite nearly 5 decades of research uncovering the two factors’ roles and the nature of their interactions in processes such as germination and leaf development, scientists were unable to fully decipher the mechanisms driving their antagonistic relationship. But the recent side-by-side publication of two studies in Nature identifying key molecular components involved has helped deepen the understanding of plant development and triggered a widespread search for additional regulators.
In 2005, research teams from the Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia–CSIC in Madrid and Yale University independently began to map out the molecular mechanisms behind the interactions between light and gibberellins (GAs). At the time, scientists understood ...
