WHAT'S NEW ABOUT THE ROLE OF ETHYLENE IN PLANTS?

Ethylene plays a major role in many aspects of plant growth and development. Among its effects are:

• Promoting fruit ripening by causing changes in membrane permeability which result in metabolic changes
  
  
• Seedlings have a characteristic triple response phenotype to ethylene including inhibited stem elongation, increased stem thickening and increased lateral growth
  
  
• Contributes to apical dominance
  
  
• Protects shoot tip by causing hook formation during emergence of dicot seedlings
  
  
• Interacts with auxin, acting as a second messenger in root gravitropism and elongation
  
  
• Involved in regulating abscission: normally a gradient of auxin maintains the abscission zone, however if this gradient is disturbed the plant becomes sensitive to ethylene (even at very low concentrations), causing rapid production and secretion of hydrolytic enzymes resulting in abscission
  
  
• Involved in initiating the expression of stress responses in plants
  
  
• Ethylene also influences cell expansion by initiating a change in the orientation of cellulose microfibrils being laid down in the cell wall, thus influencing the axis of growth
  (Moore, 1989)

There is lots of interesting research involving the role of ethylene in plant growth and development going on even as we speak . . .

Click on the following to hear about some of the recent findings:

New Info About the Ethylene Signal Transduction Pathway

Ethylene Action: At The DNA Level



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