提出问题：Much is known about how plants respond to acute thermal stresses, but the mechanisms that integrate long-term temperature exposure remain unknown.

春化背景：The slow, winter-long upregulation of VERNALIZATION INSENSITIVE 3 (VIN3), a PHD protein that functions with Polycomb repressive complex 2 to epigenetically silence FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) during vernalization, is central to plants interpreting winter progression.

主要发现：Here, by a forward genetic screen, we identify two dominant mutations of the transcription factor NTL8 that constitutively activate VIN3 expression and alter the slow VIN3 cold induction profile.

野生型：In the wild type, the NTL8 protein accumulates slowly in the cold, and directly upregulates VIN3 transcription.

模型预测+试验验证：Through combining computational simulation and experimental validation, we show that a major contributor to this slow accumulation is reduced NTL8 dilution due to slow growth at low temperatures.

结论：Temperature-dependent growth is thus exploited through protein dilution to provide the long-term thermosensory information for VIN3 upregulation.

总结：Indirect mechanisms involving temperature-dependent growth, in addition to direct thermosensing, may be widely relevant in long-term biological sensing of naturally fluctuating temperatures.