Regulation of Inflorescence Architecture in Maize

玉米、水稻、小麦、高粱、大麦、小米和燕麦等谷类作物占世界营养的大部分。除了谷类作物外，还有大约10，000种野草，覆盖了大约1/5的地球陆地表面。 几乎所有的禾本科植物都具有小穗的特征，小穗是一个含有花分生组织的短分支。花的分生组织产生被收获的种子。这些小穗在不同禾本科植物中的排列，以及它们所生的分枝，反映了在花序发育过程中产生的分生组织的不同命运。鉴定决定分生组织命运的基因并了解这些基因整合其活性的机制对于发育生物学、进化生物学以及应用遗传学和育种学具有巨大价值。将玉米作为一个模型系统的发展假设来自玉米的信息应该适用于其他谷物，实际上适用于任何其他植物。 玉米和其他谷物之间的比较，以及玉米和野草之间的比较，将测试模型系统开发的基本假设。花序基因将被确定为三个不同学科的工具：分生组织发育，数量性状分析和比较生物学在禾本科。表达基因的测序和表达谱分析将用于鉴定在发育的最早阶段表达的基因的子集，以及与所选突变体中特定分生组织类型的增殖相关的基因。这些基因的功能将通过遗传学和作图来确定。花序基因的图谱位置将提供与数量性状的联系，以及与玉米和其他禾本科植物的突变的联系。一组选定的基因将通过反向遗传学进行突变，以确定它们在花序发育中的功能。还将在其他谷物和野草中研究这些基因的一个子集。 这些基因是否在进化过程中被修改过，以及它们在其他禾本科植物中的功能是否与玉米中的功能相同，这些都将被确定。这些比较将为研究6000万年草的进化和多样性提供有价值的数据集。

The cereal crops, such as maize, rice, wheat, sorghum, barley, millet, and oats, account for the majority of world's nutrition. In addition to the cereal crops, there are approximately 10,000 species of wild grasses, which cover about 1/5 of the earth's land surface. Nearly all grasses are characterized by the spikelet, a short branch that contains floral meristems. Floral meristems produce the seeds that are harvested. The arrangement of these spikelets in different grasses, and the branches on which they are borne, reflects differing fates of the meristems produced during inflorescence development. Identifying the genes that determine meristem fates and understanding the mechanism by which these genes integrate their activities would be of immense value for developmental biology, evolutionary biology, and applied genetics and breeding. Development of maize as a model system assumes that information from maize should be applicable to other cereals, and indeed to any other plant. Comparisons between maize and the other cereals, and between maize and wild grasses, will test this basic assumption of model system development. Inflorescence genes will be identified that will serve as tools for three different disciplines: investigation of meristem development, quantitative trait analysis, and comparative biology in the grasses. Sequencing of expressed genes and expression profiling will be used to identify a subset of genes that are expressed at the earliest stages of development, and that correlate with the proliferation of specific meristem types in selected mutants. The function of these genes will be determined through genetics and mapping. Map positions of the inflorescence genes will provide a link to quantitative traits, and to mutations in maize and other grasses. A selected group of genes will be mutated by reverse genetics to determine their function in inflorescence development. A subset of the genes will also be studied in other cereals and wild grasses. Whether these genes have been modified over evolutionary time and whether they function in other grasses the same way as they do in maize will be determined. These comparisons will provide a valuable data set for the study of evolution and diversity across 60 million years of grass evolution.