Plants use the same hormone to grow and make friends
Wani KI, Manzoor MA, Aftab T, Wang Z, Brewer PB
Plant Signaling
The way a tomato or petunia branches, or how readily its roots team up with soil fungi for extra water and nutrients, traces back to this one hormone family, so understanding it could lead to treatments that make garden plants more drought-tolerant or better at resisting weeds like witchweed.
Strigolactones are chemical signals plants release both inside their own tissues and out into the soil. Internally they tell the plant how many branches to grow, how deep to send roots, and when to drop leaves; externally they call in helpful fungi that trade nutrients for sugar, but they can also accidentally summon parasitic weeds. This review pulls together decades of research on how plants build, sense, and fine-tune these dual-purpose signals.
Key Findings
Strigolactones were confirmed as a true plant hormone class in 2008, after first being identified as root exudates that trigger parasitic weed seed germination and support mycorrhizal fungal symbiosis.
The receptor DWARF14 and its partner protein DWARF53 form a core signaling module that governs how plants perceive strigolactones and translate that into developmental responses like shoot branching and root architecture.
Strigolactone signaling overlaps with karrikin signaling through shared components (DWARF14 and KARRIKIN INSENSITIVE 2), and evolutionary changes in biosynthesis enzymes and receptors have diversified strigolactone functions across plant-microbe symbiosis and stress response.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Strigolactones are plant hormones that control branching and root growth while also calling in beneficial fungal partners underground, and this review traces how plants evolved different versions of these chemical signals for development versus communication with other organisms.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Emerging Paradigms in Strigolactone Biosynthesis, Signaling, and Evolutionary Dynamics.
Originally identified as root-derived exudates that trigger the germination of parasitic weed seeds, strigolactones (SLs) were later discovered to be crucial facilitators of plant symbiotic associa...
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