Light and Shade Regulation of Plant Development

From the different light-regulated plant development responses, rhe group aims to understand how plants respond to vegetation proximity, a type of plant-plant communication. In Arabidopsis thaliana, a sun-loving plant that avoids vegetation proximity and shade, perception of neighboring vegetation results in the activation of a set of responses known as the shade avoidance syndrome (SAS). The most obvious SAS response is the promotion of seedling elongation. After identifying several SAS regulatory components, we established that they are organized in complex transcriptional regulatory networks in which the levels of several components are rapidly altered after plant proximity perception. This network is formed by a broad range of transcription factors and cofactors, as well as specific components of the nuclear pore complex.