Classification of plant hormones or plant-growth regulators with some #1excludeGlossary characteristics. Auxins generally promote cell elongation and inhibit lateral branching. Moreover, they also serve an important role in positive phototropism which is the plant’s ability to bend toward the light.
Auxins (plural of auxin /ˈɔːksɪn/) are a class of plant hormones (or plant-growth regulators) with some morphogen-like characteristics. Auxins play a cardinal role in coordination of many growth and behavioral processes in plant life cycles and are essential for plant body development. The Dutch biologist Frits Warmolt Went first described auxins and their role in plant growth in the 1920s. Kenneth V. Thimann became the first to isolate one of these phytohormones and to determine its chemical structure as indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). Went and Thimann co-authored a book on plant hormones, Phytohormones, in 1937.
There are four more endogenously synthesized auxins in plants.
All auxins are compounds with aromatic ring and a carboxylic acid group:
English
Etymology
From Ancient Greek αὐξάνω (auxánō, “to grow”) + -in.
Pronunciation
Noun
auxin (countable and uncountable, plural auxins)
- (botany, biochemistry) A class of plant growth substance (often called phytohormones or plant hormones) which play an essential role in coordination of many growth and behavioral processes in the plant life cycle.