"Farmers are limited by the seasons, but by understanding the circadian rhythm of plants, which controls basic functions such as photosynthesis and flowering, we might be able to engineer plants that can grow in different seasons and places than is currently possible," said Xing Wang Deng, the Daniel C. Eaton Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale and senior author of the paper.
The circadian clock is the internal timekeeper found in almost all organisms that helps synchronize biological processes with day and night. In plants, this clock is crucial for adjusting growth to both time and day and to the seasons.
The clock operates through the cooperative relationship between "morning" genes and "evening" genes. Proteins encoded by the morning genes suppress evening genes at daybreak, but by nightfall levels of these proteins drop and evening genes are activated. Intriguingly, these evening genes are necessary to turn on morning genes completing the 24-hour cycle.
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