Arabidopsis: two-hundredths anniversary of its name and the possibility of a hidden universal regulatory signal

Abstract

In 1821, the Swiss botanist A. P. de Candolle (1788–1841) introduced the term “Arabidopsis” to denote a group of dicotyledonous plants (family Brassicaceae). Here, we recount the history of Arabidopsis research from 1588 to 2020, with a focus on light and plant development. We document that plant stem cell research, with commercial applications, is essentially based on Arabidopsis-thaliana. Then, we discuss scoto- and photomorphogenesis in this model plant and introduce the light-auxin-connection. Based on these insights, we argue that an as yet unknown “hidden signal” must be involved in the phenomenon of scotomorphogenesis, also known under the name etiolation. We conclude that Arabidopsis will serve in the foreseeable future as the model organism of choice with respect to the causal analysis of the actions of light and phytohormones during plant development.