Control of the transition to flowering

Current Opinion in Biotechnology

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 145-149

  Colasanti, Joseph ^a   Sundaresan, Venkatesan ^a  

^a Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory ^*  (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GENE EXPRESSION REGULATION; GENETIC ANALYSIS; MOLECULAR CLONING; NONHUMAN; PLANT GROWTH; PRIORITY JOURNAL; REGULATOR GENE; REVIEW; SIGNAL TRANSDUCTION; TRANSGENIC PLANT;

EID: 0029975853     PISSN: 09581669     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0958-1669(96)80004-8     Document Type: Article

References (38)

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23. Martinez-Zapater JM, Coupland G, Dean C, Koornneef M: The transition to flowering in Arabidopsis. In Arabidopsis. Edited by Meyerowitz EM, Somerville CR: Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; 1994:403-433. A comprehensive review of recent developments in Arabidopsis with respect to the transition to flowering. Includes information about natural variation in Arabidopsis ecotypes and a description of the morphological changes associated with the flowering transition process.
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34. Putterill J, Robson F, Lee K, Simon R, Coupland C: The CONSTANS gene of Arabidopsis promotes flowering and encodes a protein showing similarities to zinc finger transcription factors. Cell 1995, 80:847-857. Reports the cloning of the CONSTANS gene of Arabidopsis, as well as the double-mutant analysis of constans with mutants that affect GA biosynthesis and perception, meristem identity gene mutants and phytochrome mutants. The CONSTANS gene sequence reveals two CC/CC-type zinc finger motifs reminiscent of the GATA1 transcription factor. Expression analysis reveals that CONSTANS mRNA is present at extremely low levels in shoots and leaves and that CONSTANS transcript levels are reduced in short-day grown plants. This latter finding is in agreement with the suggested role for CONSTANS in the pathway of perceiving inductive photoperiods. Another interesting finding is that transgenic copies of CONSTANS can accelerate flowering under long-day as well as short-day photoperiods, suggesting that the level of the CONSTANS product is limiting under both conditions.
35. Eimert K, Wang S-L, Lue W-L, Chen J: Monogenic recessive mutations causing both late floral initiation and excess starch accumulation in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell 1995, 7:1 703-1712. Physiological analysis of the Arabidopsis late-flowering mutant, gigantea, reveals elevated levels of starch in its leaves, suggesting a possible connection between flowering time and carbon partitioning.
36. Lee I, Aukerman MJ, Gore SL, Lohman KN, Michaels SD, Weaver LM, John MC, Feldmann KA, Amasino RM: Isolation of LUMINIDEPENDENS: a gene involved in the control of flowering time in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell 1994, 6:75-83. First report of the isolation of a gene that controls flowering time, LD. The LD gene is cloned by T-DNA lagging and found to encode a protein with features that suggest it might have a role as a transcription factor, such as a nuclear localization signal and a glutamine-rich region. Although LD is classified as one of the genes in the constitutive floral promotion pathway that can be substituted by vernalization, experiments performed here suggest that it could be involved in the perception of light levels or light quality.
37. Weigel D, Nilsson O: A developmental switch sufficient for flower initiation in diverse plants. Nature 1995, 377:495-500. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants that ectopically express the meristem identity gene LEAFY are found to undergo accelerated flowering and to cause axillaty meristems that would normally give rise to lateral shoots to develop into isolated flowers. This suggests not only that LEAFY is required to specify meristem identity, but also that it can act as a developmental switch that is sufficient to convert lateral shoots into flowers. Interestingly, transgenic aspen trees expressing the Arabidopsis LEAFY gene ectopically flower years earlier than normal trees, suggesting a possible use for this gene in the accelerated breeding of trees. The other issue addressed here is that the shoot apex must become competent to respond to floral inductive signals. An idea is proposed that floral induction (e.g. from leaf-generated signals) can also regulate the competence of the meristem to respond to the activity of flower meristem identity genes.
38. ••] found that the effect of ectopic LEAFY is attenuated in an ap1 mutant background, these authors show that the converse is not true (i.e. transgenic AP1 plants flower just as early in a leafy mutant background). This suggests that AP1 acts downstream of LEAFY to specify meristem identity, with LEAFY having a possible role in activating AP1 expression. Another interesting difference between LEAFY and AP1 is that transgenic expression of AP1 also reduces flowering time under non-inductive short-day photoperiods (see [37••]).