As plants can find themselves in situations of bright sun light, shade and dark one would expect rapid adaptation of energy trapping. Avihai Danon has shown continuous sensing of the state of reducing equivalents generated by the light-reactions of photosynthesis in the chloroplast. The reduced compounds directly modify key regulatory proteins that influence the translation rate of mRNA through special RNA-binding proteins. His work implies that these regulatory mechanisms are more universal than previously appreciated. The features that distinguish plants from animals are not limited to photosynthesis.
Plants are sessile, have rigid cell walls and have no fixed germline.
This means that their development differs radically from that found in animals. Gideon Grafi studies a basic feature of plant design called totipotency, which is the ability of plants to regenerate themselves from differentiated single cells. It is this feature that enables the rapid regeneration of transgenic plants from single cells. By looking at the way developmentally regulated genes, such as retinoblastoma protein the ubiquitin proteosome system and gross chromatin organization change during development he has shown that totipotency is a regular feature of plant life enabling plants to dedifferentiate, change their fate, re-enter the cell cycle, multiply, and ultimately form new plants. The rapid adaptive responses of plants to the biotic and abiotic environment dictate their success as organisms.