Wageningen: Function of new plant hormone

Research lead

Scientists from the Wageningen University Laboratory of Plant Physiology working with an international team of scientists have discovered a new group of plant hormones called strigolactones that are involved in the interaction between plants and their environment.

The scientists have shown that strigolactones are crucial for the branching of plants, a finding of importance in a number of commercially important plants. Examples of potential applications include the development of cut flowers or tomato plants with more, or fewer branches.

Previous research by institutes including Wageningen has shown that strigolactones play a major part in the interaction between plants and their environment. As plants cannot move, they commonly use their own chemicals to control the environment as best as they can.

For example, strigolactones are of major importance to the interaction between plants and symbiotic fungi, which transport minerals from the soil to the plant, while the plant gives the fungi sugars in return.

Strigolactones have also been hijacked by harmful organisms, for example, helping seeds of parasitic plants to germinate when roots of the host plant are in the vicinity. The seedlings of the parasite attach to the root of the plant and use the plant’s nutrients for their own growth and reproduction.

The research team found mutants of pea that were branching without restraint. It turned out that these pea plants were not capable of producing strigolactones. When strigolactones were administered the unrestrained branching stopped. The same effect was observed in thale cress. The mutant plants also caused a significantly lower level of germination of parasitic plant seeds and induced less interaction with symbiotic fungi.