🧪🌾REVIEW - Is the circadian clock merely light driven?

@luiscervela.bsky.social, Marta Francisco @csic.es & Åsa Strand illustrate that the circadian system also acts as a central integrator of energy status and environmental cues.

Read more in @mdpiopenaccess.bsky.social:
doi.org/10.3390/plan...

Plants don’t just use light to set their circadian clock—metabolites like sugars, ROS & organic acids from chloroplasts & mitochondria feed back on clock genes via retrograde signaling, forming a dynamic light–clock–metabolism feedback loop. doi.org/10.3390/plan...

Amazing work by former colleagues and friends. Many congratulations Martí Quevedo, Ivona Kubalová, Alexis Brun, @luiscervela.bsky.social, Elerna Monte and Åsa Strand. 🌱🎉👏👏
#PlastidRetrogradeSignals #chromatin
@umeaplantsciencecentre.se @cragenomica.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our paper on Alternative epigenetic states of Arabidopsis Transposable Elements is finally out in Genome Biology !

rdcu.be/d6Yly

I have written a couple of threads 🧵 on "classic" #PlantScience papers. I always tag them with #PlantScienceClassics , but will also compile them here in this thread: 👇

Please consider registering & submitting an abstract for the first ever Plant Chronobiology meeting happening in Leuven next summer! Thanks to support from the FWO, we can offer accommodation coverage for international early career presenters! #plantscience

plantclock.wixsite.com/2025

Ever wondered how plants breathe and manage water loss? 🌿 This depends on tiny pores called stomata. A new study reveals how a key regulator, CDK8, ensures these pores form in the right places, connecting leaf growth to function.

Curious to learn more?

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I always liked this quote in defense of basic science:

"To feed applied science by starving basic science is like economizing on the foundations of a building so that it may be built higher. It is only a matter of time before the whole edifice crumbles".

— George Porter

Plants rely on an internal clock to balance their metabolism between day and night. The TOC1 protein plays a key role, regulating energy and sugar production. When TOC1 is disrupted, plants struggle to maintain this balance, impacting growth and survival. 🌱⏳

doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.683516

Plants 'wake up' to light using proteins bZIP16, bZIP68 & GBF1 to kickstart chloroplast development for photosynthesis. These light-sensitive switches fine-tune growth, ensuring seedlings thrive as they transition from dark to light. 🌱☀️

doi.org/10.1111/nph.19219

Plant adapt their growth to their environment. A leaf, for example, growing under higher CO2 concentrations has fewer stomata. Swedish researchers show in Plant, Cell & Environment how plants are regulating this.
Read more about this study on my blog plantenzo.net/2024/08/30/a...

#PlantScience What an year! Excited to share our work on Crosskingdom RNAi in plant-fungus symbiosis @newphyt.bsky.social as part of a wonderful collaboration with Prof. Luisa Lanfranco at University of Torino (more to come!) nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/4XMQAB...