Phytochrome-interacting factors (PIFs) regulate phytohormone-mediated plant environmental adaptation

Abstract

Climate change is threating global ecosystems, and so understanding how plants adapt and respond to it is of immediate research interest. Transcription factors play essential roles in integrating plant growth and environmental responses. Phytochrome-Interacting Factors (PIFs) are important transcription factors that regulate both plant development and responses to various environmental stimuli, and phytohormones link external stimuli and internal regulations. Although PIFs functions and phytohormones have been widely studied recently, a summary of current advances in PIFs and phytohormone-mediated plant environmental adaptations is lacking. This review focuses on PIFs identification in various species, and their functions in auxin-related shade avoidance syndrome (SAS) and warmth, gibberellin (GA)-related SAS, ethylene-related shade avoidance, and abscisic acid (ABA)-related drought tolerance, and their interactions in phytohormones crosstalk. We further emphasize phytohormones and PIFs in amphibious plant phenotypic plasticity. Overall, we review current advances in PIFs and phytohormone-mediated plant environmental adaptation, which will be instructive for future research.