light and hormonal signaling

The plant endogenous clock regulates cyclic oscilation of about 30% of the Arabidopsis transcripts. Diurnal changes in light and temperature are known to entrain the plant circadian clock to external conditions. By that, protective pigments are co.expressed at dawn,  thus anticipating  daily exposure to light, while ABA signaling up-regulation and stomatal closure anticipates warmer temperaturas of mid-day.  Work over the last decade has begun to uncover the mechanisms by which daily fluctuations in light set the phase of the circadian clock. However, much less is known about how daily fluxes in temperature provide information for clock entrainment. Our preliminary results indicate that the Evening Complex (EC), consisting of the three proteins, EARLY FLOWERING 3 (ELF3), ELF4 and the LUX ARRHYTHMO (LUX) acts as an important sensor for  temperature, and in this offer LUCIFERIN fusions of these three proteins in the cop1 and phyB mutant backgrounds  will be used to the analyses of temperature-induced changes of their stabilty.