Plants need to accurately adjust their development after germination in the underground darkness to ensure survival of the seedling, both in the dark and in the light upon reaching the soil surface. Recent studies have established that the photoreceptors phytochromes and the bHLH phytochrome interacting factors PIFs regulate seedling development to adjust it to the prevailing light environment during post-germinative growth. However, complete understanding of the downstream regulatory network implementing these developmental responses is still lacking. In a recent work, published in The Plant Cell, we report a subset of PIF3-regulated genes in dark-grown seedlings that we have named MIDAs (MISREGULATED IN DARK). Analysis of their functional relevance using mutants showed that four of them present phenotypic alterations in the dark, and that each affected a particular facet of seedling development, suggesting organ-specific branching in the signal that PIF3 relays downstream. Furthermore, our results also showed an altered response to light in seedlings with an impaired PIF3/MIDA regulatory network, indicating that these factors might also be essential to initiate and optimize the developmental adjustment of the seedling to the light environment.

This work was supported by a Beatriu de Pinós fellowship from the “Comissionat per a Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Innovació, Universitats i Empresa de la Generalitat de Catalunya” and by Marie Curie IRG PIRG06-GA-2009-256420 grant to P.L., and by grants Marie Curie IRG-046568, Spanish “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación” BIO2006-09254 and BIO2009-07675 and Generalitat de Catalunya 2009-SGR-206 to E.M.

Peer reviewed