Auxin is a small molecule that plays a big role in how plants grow and adapt. In this review, Dr. Jorge Hernández García from CBGP, together with Prof. Dolf Weijers from Wageningen University & Research, explores where auxin came from, how it evolved, and why it became a central system controlling plant development.
Plants use chemical signals to control how they grow, develop, and respond to their surroundings. One of the most important of these signals is a small molecule called auxin. Despite its simplicity, auxin helps guide many key processes, such as how roots and shoots grow, how plants bend toward light, and how they react to gravity.
In this work, the researchers look at how auxin became such a central part of plant life. We bring together knowledge from different fields to understand where this signaling system came from and how it changed over time. Recent findings, including their own, suggest that auxin signaling has very ancient origins and gradually became more complex as plants evolved.
How the main parts of the auxin systems, such as the proteins that sense auxin, control gene activity, and move auxin through the plant, appeared and diversified has been the focus of recent work from their labs. Over millions of years, these components formed a coordinated network that gives plants precise control over their growth. This helped plants adapt to living on land and to a wide range of environments.
Studying how auxin evolved is not only interesting from a scientific point of view, but also useful in practice. A better understanding of this system can help researchers improve crops, for example, by making them more resistant to stress or better suited to changing environmental conditions. By exploring the evolutionary history of auxin, this work helps explain how a simple molecule became one of the key tools plants use to build their forms and thrive in diverse habitats.
Original Paper: Hernandez-Garcia, J.✉, Weijers, D. 2026. The origin and evolution of auxin as a plant signaling molecule. Current Biology 36, R545–R552. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.034
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