Research led by the Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior
de Investigaciones Cient?­ficas, CSIC) has developed a mathematical model
based on temperature-regulated processes that can predict plant response
toglobal warming. The research, published in the journal/Science
Advances/, identified the role of COP1 protein as a growth promoter of
Arabidopsis plants in long days and high environmental temperatures and
its interaction with other cellular factors.

The research is a collaboration between research groups at CSIC, the
Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG), the National Center
for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), and the Interdisciplinary Group of Complex
Systems (GISC) of the Carlos III University of Madrid. The results of
the study have been used to develop a mathematical model that associates
the active levels of cellular factors regulated by light and temperature
with the growth of the embryonic stem or the hypocotyl. Salom?? Prat, a
researcher at CRAG points out that the importance of this work goes
beyond the characterization of the molecular bases of thermomorphogenesis.

Plants adapt to the environmental conditions around them, including the
duration of the day and ambient temperature. These two factors directly
affect crop yields, hence the interest of the scientific community in
their study. The first response of plants to temperature increase is the
elongation of the hypocotyl, to facilitate cooling of the leaves and
minimize the damage caused by heat. The research team grew several
mutant lines of Arabidopsis under various light and temperature
conditions. They were able to adjust the parameters of the equations
with the experimental data of hypocotyl length, and one of the most
interesting predictions of the model was that the maximum activity of
COP1 occurs during the day and at high temperatures, explains Ares.

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