Water availability and growth: how plants choose
Plants know when the environment is suitable for growth or not © Joana Carvalho, IGC 2020
In a recently published paper in Nature Plants, the team led by Elena Baena, Principal Investigator at IGC and Identity Director of GREEN-IT, uncovers the mechanisms by which plants process the information of water availability and accordingly regulate their growth.
Water is essential for plant growth and when scarce plants know to manage their resources, but how exactly they handle the information that leads to this behavior is still to be fully understood. This new study reveals that upon inactivation of the SnRK1 kinase plants develop larger roots, under optimal conditions, possibly leading to an increase of water uptake in the roots.
These results not only have implications on future strategies to combat drought, but also probably provide some insight on the transition of plants from water to land, during evolution.
Original Paper
A dual function of SnRK2 kinases in the regulation of SnRK1 and plant growth
Belda-Palazón, B., Adamo, M., Valerio, C. et al. A dual function of SnRK2 kinases in the regulation of SnRK1 and plant growth. Nat. Plants (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41477-020-00778-w
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