Auxin's origin: do PILS hold the key?

Abstract

Auxin is a key regulator of many developmental processes in land plants and plays a strikingly similar role in the phylogenetically distant brown seaweeds. Emerging evidence shows that the PIN and PIN-like (PILS) auxin transporter families have preceded the evolution of the canonical auxin response pathway. A wide conservation of PILS-mediated auxin transport, together with reports of auxin function in unicellular algae, would suggest that auxin function preceded the advent of multicellularity. We find that PIN and PILS transporters form two eukaryotic subfamilies within a larger bacterial family. We argue that future functional characterisation of algal PIN and PILS transporters can shed light on a common origin of an auxin function followed by independent co-option in a multicellular context.