A chemical called auxin controls how plants grow — bending toward light, growing roots, dropping leaves — and scientists have now traced how this molecule went from being a common compound found across all living things to becoming a master switch inside plants.
1
Auxin is not unique to plants — it is found across all domains of life (bacteria, fungi, animals), but plants uniquely evolved an intracellular system to use it as a developmental signal.
2
A small number of pre-existing proteins were co-opted and coordinated to assemble the auxin perception and response system, meaning the system arose from repurposing rather than invention from scratch.
3
The capacity to synthesize auxin internally converted what was once an environmental/ecological signal into a tightly controlled endogenous (inside-the-plant) hormone.
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