hormone-evolution
Hormone evolution explores how plant signaling molecules—such as auxins, gibberellins, and cytokinins—originated and diversified across evolutionary time. Understanding the evolutionary history of these hormones reveals how land plants adapted to new environments and developed complex developmental programs like root growth, flowering, and stress responses. This research helps scientists decode the genetic and biochemical innovations that shaped modern plant physiology and can inform efforts to improve crop resilience and productivity.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-05-06
Ethylene, the gas plants use to ripen fruit and signal stress, turns out to be detected not just by plants but also by bacteria — and possibly fungi. Over the past decade, scientists discovered that some microbes carry receptors nearly identical to plant ethylene receptors, meaning this ancient signaling molecule coordinates life across multiple kingdoms.
Bacteria possess functional plant-like ethylene receptors confirmed across multiple studies over the past decade, with ethylene binding shown to significantly alter bacterial metabolism and physiology.
Some fungi may also carry functional plant-like ethylene receptors with binding domains structurally similar to those in plants, extending ethylene sensing beyond the plant and bacterial kingdoms.
Microbes may additionally possess entirely distinct, noncanonical ethylene receptors that are evolutionarily unrelated to plant receptors, suggesting ethylene sensing may have evolved independently multiple times across life.