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Updated: Aug 7, 2026

Monitoring Plant Hormones During Stress Responses
Published on: June 15, 2009
Signs of change: hormone receptors that regulate plant development
Anthony Bishopp1, Ari Pekka Mähönen, Ykä Helariutta
1Plant Molecular Biology Laboratory, Institute of Biotechnology, POB 56, FI-00014, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Abstract:
Hormonal signalling plays a pivotal role in almost every aspect of plant development, and of high priority has been to identify the receptors that perceive these hormones. In the past seven months, the receptors for the plant hormones auxin, gibberellins and abscisic acid have been identified. These join the receptors that have previously been identified for ethylene, brassinosteroids and cytokinins. This review therefore comes at an exciting time for plant developmental biology, as the new findings shed light on our current understanding of the structure and function of the various hormone receptors, their related signalling pathways and their role in regulating plant development.
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Notably, the cellular response can be regulated by altering the number of receptors expressed in the cell. For example, prolonged exposure to elevated hormone levels results in a gradual decline or down-regulation in the number of receptors for that specific hormone on the cell surface. Conversely, in response to low hormone levels, cells may use up-regulation, producing an...

