Plants make melatonin too, and it helps them survive heat and drought
Hussain B, Haouala F, Fariduddin Q
Plant Signaling
When prairie grasses and garden perennials weather a brutal July heat wave while ornamentals nearby collapse, melatonin is part of the reason, and breeders are now learning to amplify that molecular edge in crops.
Melatonin is the chemical that makes you sleepy at night, but plants make it too, and in their world it functions as an emergency alarm system. When a plant faces drought, heat, or a fungal attack, melatonin triggers protective enzymes and rewrites gene expression to help the plant survive. Plant scientists have spent thirty years mapping how this works, and they're now engineering crops that produce more of it naturally to better handle heat waves and prolonged dry spells.
Key Findings
Melatonin modulates plant responses to at least six categories of abiotic stress, including heat, cold, salinity, drought, heavy metals, and UV radiation, plus biotic stresses from pathogens and herbivores, primarily via antioxidant enzyme activation and stress-responsive gene regulation.
Molecular studies have identified specific melatonin receptors in plants and mapped its integration with other plant hormones, a discovery pipeline that only opened after melatonin was first detected in plants in the mid-1990s.
Genetic engineering tools have successfully raised endogenous melatonin levels in plants, establishing a viable pathway toward crops with enhanced, heritable stress resilience.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Melatonin, best known as the human sleep hormone, turns out to be a potent stress-response molecule in plants too, helping them survive drought, heat, salt, pathogens, and more by activating protective genes and antioxidant defenses. This review traces three decades of discovery and points toward genetic tools that could produce crops with built-in, dialed-up melatonin responses for better resilience.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
From night hormone to green signal: The journey of melatonin.
Melatonin (MT), once considered exclusive to animals, is now recognized as a universal and multifunctional molecule in plants, playing pivotal roles in growth regulation, stress tolerance, and anti...
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