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Many plants flower in response to seasonal fluctuations in daylength. The CONSTANS (CO) gene of Arabidopsis promotes floweringin long days. Flowering is induced when CO messenger RNA expressioncoincides with the exposure of plants to light. However, howthis promotes CO activity is unknown. We show that light stabilizesnuclear CO protein in the evening, whereas in the morning orin darkness the protein is degraded by the proteasome. Photoreceptorsregulate CO stability and act antagonistically to generate dailyrhythms in CO abundance. This layer of regulation refines thecircadian rhythm in CO messenger RNA and is central to the mechanismby which day length controls flowering.
1 Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding, Carl-von-Linne Weg 10, D-50829 Cologne, Germany. 2 Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
* These authors contributed equally to this work.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: coupland{at}mpiz-koeln.mpg.de
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