种子休眠可以确保物种渡过恶劣气候，避免同族竞争。农业上，低休眠的种子在阴雨天会穗发芽导致严重的粮食减产。因此，研究种子休眠和萌发的调控机制，具有重要的理论和应用价值。脱落酸（ABA）是已知的唯一能诱导和维持种子休眠的激素。我们最新的研究结果证明生长素是另一种新的正调控种子休眠的关键激素，其下游ARF10/16转录因子扮演了重要角色，这为农业上控制穗发芽提供了一种新思路。然而其调控的分子机制并不清楚。我们后续的研究发现ARF10/16激活了ABI3和NCED9这两个ABA信号和合成关键基因的表达。序列分析发现，它们启动子区都含有ARFs转录因子结合的元件，这暗示ARF10/16可能直接结合到这两个或更多ABA相关基因的启动子区，激活了它们的表达，进而调控了种子的休眠和萌发。本项目将验证这一假说，在生长素与ABA通路之间建立无断点的分子连接，最终揭示生长素调控种子休眠和萌发的分子机制。

Seed dormancy may ensure seed plants to survive atrocious weather and avoid competition between individuals of the same species. In agriculture, low level of seed dormancy results in preharvest sprouting when humid conditions persist, causing substantial losses in yield. So it has important theoretical significance and application value to study the regulatory mechanism of seed dormancy and germination. Abscisic acid (ABA) is the sole plant hormone known to induce and maintain the seed dormancy during seed maturation and germination. Our latest results show that auxin is another new key hormone of seed dormancy and its downstream transcription factors ARF10 and ARF16 play a critical role in seed dormancy, which provides a new way of thinking to control pre-harvest sprouting in crops. However, its molecular regulatory mechanism of seed dormancy is not clear. Later We found that ARF10 and ARF16 activate the expression of ABI3 and NCED9 which are two key regulators of ABA signaling and biosynthesis. By sequence analysis, we found that there are auxin response elements (AuxREs) in their promoter regions, suggesting that ARF10/16 may regulate the expression of ABI3, NCED9 or more ABA-related genes by binding to their promoter regions directly. We will give an in-depth study of it and find a ungapped molecular link between auxin and ABA pathway and finally uncover the molecular mechanism of seed dormancy regulated by auxin.