日本研究人员在最新一期美国《当代生物学》杂志网络版上发表论文说，他们在利用十字花科植物拟南芥进行的实验中，首次发现催促植物开花的FT蛋白质还具有调整叶片气孔开闭的作用，较多的FT蛋白质可促进植物“深呼吸”，从而吸收更多二氧化碳。
在通常状态下，植物在感受到蓝光以后，会为进行光合作用而打开气孔，吸收二氧化碳。但日本名古屋大学教授木下俊则率领的研究小组发现了一株即使感受不到蓝光，也会打开气孔的拟南芥。经过分析，研究人员发现其遏制FT蛋白质生成的功能遭到了破坏。
研究人员猜测，有可能是生成的FT蛋白质过剩导致这株变异的拟南芥的气孔一直张开。于是研究人员在野生拟南芥中的气孔部分增加了FT蛋白质，结果发现气孔大大张开，而减少FT蛋白质后，气孔就会变得难以打开。
木下俊则等人说，如果操作FT蛋白质，就可以人为打开植物的气孔，或许能使植物更多地吸收大气中的二氧化碳，防止地球变暖。
但研究人员承认，FT蛋白质过剩也有一个副作用，会促使变异的拟南芥过早开花，导致它还没有长到野生拟南芥的个头时，就“早早死掉”了。
生物探索推推荐英文摘要：
FLOWERING LOCUS T Regulates Stomatal Opening
Summary
Stomatal pores surrounded by a pair of guard cells in the plant epidermis control gas exchange for photosynthesis in response to light, CO2, and phytohormone abscisic acid . Phototropins are plant blue-light receptor kinases and mediate stomatal opening via activation of the plasma membrane H+-ATPase. However, the signaling mechanism from phototropins to the H+-ATPase has yet to be determined. Here, we show that FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) is expressed in guard cells and regulates stomatal opening. We isolated an scs (suppressor of closed-stomata phenotype in phot1 phot2) 1-1 mutant of Arabidopsis thaliana and showed that scs1-1 carries a novel null early flowering 3 (elf3) allele in a phot1 phot2 background. scs1-1 (elf3 phot1 phot2 triple mutant) had an open-stomata phenotype with high H+-ATPase activity and showed increased levels of FT mRNA in guard cells. Transgenic plants overexpressing FT in guard cells showed open stomata, whereas a loss-of-function FT allele, ft-1, exhibited closed stomata and failed to activate the H+-ATPase in response to blue light. Our results define a new cell-autonomous role for FT and demonstrate that the flowering time genes ELF3 and FT are involved in the regulation of H+-ATPase by blue light in guard cells.
