A Century of Gibberellin Research

Abstract

Gibberellin research has its origins in Japan in the 19th century, when a disease of rice was shown to be due to a fungal infection. The symptoms of the disease including overgrowth of the seedling and sterility were later shown to be due to secretions of the fungus Gibberella fujikuroi (now reclassified as Fusarium fujikuroi), from which the name gibberellin was derived for the active component. The profound effect of gibberellins on plant growth and development, particularly growth recovery in dwarf mutants and induction of bolting and flowering in some rosette species, prompted speculation that these fungal metabolites were endogenous plant growth regulators and this was confirmed by chemical characterisation in the late 1950s. Gibberellins are now known to be present in vascular plants, and some fungal and bacterial species. The biosynthesis of gibberellins in plants and the fungus has been largely resolved in terms of the pathways, enzymes, genes and their regulation. The proposal that gibberellins act in plants by removing growth limitation was confirmed by the demonstration that they induce the degradation of the growth-inhibiting DELLA proteins. The mechanism by which this is achieved was clarified by the identification of the gibberellin receptor from rice in 2005. Current research on gibberellin action is focussed particularly on the function of DELLA proteins as regulators of gene expression. This review traces the history of gibberellin research with emphasis on the early discoveries that enabled the more recent advances in this field.

OsmiR396d Affects Gibberellin and Brassinosteroid Signaling to Regulate Plant Architecture in Rice

“…BR and GA are vital hormones in plant that influence various developmental processes, such as cell division, cell elongation, flowering, leaf senescence, and seed germination (Greenboim-Wainberg et al, 2005;Vriet et al, 2013;Fariduddin et al, 2014;Sakata et al, 2014;Hedden and Sponsel, 2015). BR and GA interact with each other at both biosynthesis and signaling levels to form a potential complex network Zhang et al, 2012).…”

“…Gibberellin (GA) and BR are two predominant plant hormones that determine plant height and leaf angle by regulating cell growth (Tong et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2014). GA is perceived and bound by the soluble protein GIBBERELLIN INSENSITIVE DWARF1 (GID1), which results in GID1 conformation change; thus, the interaction of GID1 and DELLA proteins (GA response repressors) is promoted (Ueguchi- Tanaka et al, 2007;Hedden and Sponsel, 2015). The GA-GID1-DELLA complex recruits an F-box protein (SLY1 in Arabidopsis [Arabidopsis thaliana] and GID2 in rice), and subsequently DELLA is ubiquitinated by SCF E3 ubiquitin ligase and then degraded through the proteasomal degradation pathway.…”

Discovery, Biosynthesis and Stress-Related Accumulation of Dolabradiene-Derived Defenses in Maize

“…Among these specialized metabolites, diterpenoids are a large class of more than 10,000 known compounds with diverse physiological and biological functions. Plants typically harbor both a widely conserved subset of diterpenoids such as the GAs, a class of phytohormones mediating developmental processes, and myriad specialized compounds with diverse roles in chemical ecology and plant adaptation (Keeling and Bohlmann, 2006;Gershenzon and Dudareva, 2007;Chaturvedi et al, 2012;Schmelz et al, 2014;Hedden and Sponsel, 2015). Because of their agronomic importance as two of the world's major food crops, maize (Zea mays) and rice (Oryza sativa) have been studied extensively for their terpenoid-based defense systems (Degenhardt, 2009;Schmelz et al, 2014).…”

Effect of Temperature-Shift and Temperature-Constant Cultivation on the Monacolin K Biosynthetic Gene Cluster Expression in Monascus

“…Gibbe rellin is a phytohormone that can remove the growth limitation of plants, and it is a secondary metabolite of certain fungal species such as Gibberella fujikuroi, Penicillium resedanum and Fusarium sp. (24,25). Evm.model.C8.204, described as pyruvate decarboxylase, is a key enzyme responsible for ethanol formation.…”