Steroids work in a very complicated way in plants. Plant biologists realized that these steroids target the genes to enhance growth and development in plant cells via molecular signals. These signals were studied by proteomics which is an emerging field and proteins are mapped. The steroids in plants are known as brassinosteroids and its deficiency causes stunted growth and infertility. These steroids functions at cellular level i.e. targets to the cell membrane and the cell receptor to its action in the nucleus, where genes are the targets of regulation. This was used, since cell membrane is basically made up of proteins and thus could be easily studied by separating it from the cell.

From Eureka Science:

Plant steroids, called brassinosteroids, are key hormones throughout the plant kingdom. They regulate many aspects of growth and development, and mutants deficient in brassinosteroids are often extremely stunted and infertile.

Wang’s findings have not only helped establish the connections of the steroid signaling pathway, but possibly offers a paradigm for both kinase signaling in plants and for steroid signaling by cell-surface receptors in general.

More importantly, the success of the proteomic methods demonstrated by Wang’s study will have a major impact on studies of other signal transduction pathways.

The studies showed the link of hormones with the class of proteins called kinases, which are linked to the phosphate ions, to brassinosteroids. Such signal transduction pathways were established to show the connection between the proteins and steroids. such were known to be brassinosteroids signaling kinases and were first such study by the researchers.

Wang’s major studies showed the linkage between the hormones in the plants and its function which was further enhanced by steroids called brassinosteroids.