Seeing trees blooming in the middle of winter is not unusual anymore. Plants are very sensitive to their environment and can sense changes in temperature of just a few degrees. These slight elevations in temperature due to global warming cause them to flower earlier and earlier in the season. This can lead to many negative effects in wild and crop plants including reduced seed production, smaller and fewer fruits and decreased biomass. For these reasons, understanding how plants perceive and respond to temperature is becoming more important as the phenology of plants, their seasonal growth and development, changes with the changing environment.
The Evening Complex (EC) is a three-protein complex that regulates the growth of the plant in a temperature-sensitive manner, so it is very relevant to thermosensing. Until now, scientists didn’t fully understand the role each of the proteins (LUX ARRHYTMO or LUX, EARLY FLOWERING 3 or ELF3 and EARLY FLOWERING 4 or ELF4) has in the complex and how they bind to the DNA. A team at the CNRS/CEA/UGA in Grenoble has shed light on this complex with the help of the ESRF’s macromolecular crystallography beamlines.
“We focused on EC because of its important role in the circadian rhythm of plants and its role in temperature-dependent plant growth”, explains Chloe Zubieta, corresponding author of the article and CNRS Research Director from the Laboratoire de Physiologie Cellulaire et Vegetale, located at the CEA Grenoble (CNRS/Univ. Grenoble Alpes/CEA/INRAE UMR 5168). “Shedding light on this mechanism and understanding its different components opens up the opportunity for altering the response of the plants to environmental changes,” added co-author Stephanie Hutin from the Universite Grenoble Alpes.
About ESRF
The ESRF is the world-leading source of synchrotron and a centre of excellence for fundamental and innovation-driven research for imaging and studying the structure of matter at the atomic and nanometric scale in all fields of research. Located in Grenoble, the ESRF owes its success to the international co-operation of 22 partner nations, of which 13 are Members and 9 are Scientific Associates. Following on from 20 years of success and scientific excellence, the ESRF launched the ESRF-EBS -Extremely Brilliant Source- project (150M€ over 2015-2022). Centred on rebuilding the ESRF storage ring, EBS will deliver unprecedented source brilliance and coherence (~100x), offering scientists with a powerful new instrument to look even deeper into the structure of materials and living matter. EBS also includes the construction of new state-of-the-art beamlines, a scientific instrumentation programme with ambitious detector projects and a data management and analysis strategy.
