A role for transcriptional repression during light control of plant development

Light mediates plant development partly by orchestrating changes in gene expression, a process which involves a complex combination of positive and negative signaling cascades. Genetic investigations using the small crucifer Arabidopsis thaliana have demonstrated a fundamental role for the down-regulation of light-inducible genes in response to darkness, thus offering a suitable model system for investigating how plants repress gene expression in a developmental context. Rapid progress in eukaryotic gene repression mechanisms in general, and light control of plant gene expression in particular, sheds new light on how a class of ten pleiotropic COP/DET/FUS genes might function to down-regulate light-inducible genes in plants.