Chulmin Park, doctoral researcher in the group of Laux, observed in pollinated flowers of the model organism Arabidopsis that the hormone auxin accumulates in the area of the seed in which the embryo is connected to the maternal tissue. Auxin is used by plants to control a variety processes ranging from organ development to defence against pathogenic microbes. The Freiburg biologists have shown that embryo development is disturbed when the production of auxin by the maternal cells is blocked. However, artificial activation of auxin biosynthesis in the embryo cells, which are normally unable to produce this hormone in early stages of development, allowed the embryos to develop normally without a maternal auxin supply. With these results, the researchers demonstrated that mother plants use this signalling molecule in order to communicate with their offspring and guide the earliest stages of their development. Since they made similar observations in maize, the researchers speculate that the mechanism they discovered may be widespread in plant species.

This finding could also contribute to the optimization of biotechnological plant propagation. “Plants could be bred faster and more efficiently so that they can adapt to unfavourable environmental conditions and climate change, for example”, Laux explains.

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