Funds are requested in support of a research conference for the summer of 1989 on the subject of signal perception and transduction in higher plants to be organized by the Phytochemical Society of Europe and held at the Universite Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France. The area of second messengers currently is one of the most rapidly growing areas in plant biology. Our goal is to bring together investigators in the area of plant second messengers worldwide to discuss critically the second messenger concept in plants. Since plants are immobile, it is expected that they have developed specific strategies that allow them to resist sudden changes in their external environment. Better knowledge of these processes is one of the major goals for plant improvement worldwide. For example, polyphosphoinositides have quite clearly been shown to occur in plants and to be modulated under certain developmental conditions. However, a second messenger role remains to be proven for plants and the entire field of second messengers is certainly very much in need of critical evaluation. The conference will be designed to foster interaction among participants with a view toward the emergence of new paradigms for second messengers in plants, and their role in plant growth and development and applications to crop improvement.
