Evolutionary developmental genetics of Norway spruce variety Picea abies 'Acrocona'

被子植物花在进化过程中的快速起源和多样化仍然是一个科学之谜。要解决这个问题，可能需要探索被子植物的姐妹群--现存裸子植物生殖器官形成的遗传基础。不幸的是，所有现存的裸子植物都是木本植物，需要许多年才能进入生殖阶段，因此不容易调查。然而，一个独特的机会，研究裸子植物的发育遗传学提供了两个分离的天然同源异型和异时云杉品种“Acrocona”，其特征是早熟发展的女性在错误的，即终端位置的芽，和偶尔发展的雌雄同体的圆锥。我们想比较花发育控制基因的直系同源物和近亲的突变体和野生型植物的一个人口分离的Acrocona的表达模式，以获得更深入的了解生殖发育的分子遗传基础的裸子植物。此外，这些基因的一个选定的子集将位于云杉染色体连锁图与其他Acrocona人口的表型共分离研究，旨在通过候选基因的方法进行基因克隆，并使用ACROCONA基因在这里作为第一个测试案例。我们的项目是最早通过分子遗传学研究裸子植物生殖中发育控制基因的作用。

The rapid origin and diversification of the angiosperm flower during evolution is still a scientific mystery. To solve it may require that the genetic basis of reproductive organ formation in the putative sister group of the angiosperms, extant gymnosperms, is explored. Unfortunately, all extant gymnosperms are woody plants that require many years to enter the reproductive stage and hence are not easy to investigate. However, a unique opportunity to study the developmental genetics of gymnosperms is provided by two segregating populations of the natural homeotic and heterochronic spruce variety ‘Acrocona’, which is characterised by the precocious development of female cones at wrong, i.e. terminal positions of shoots, and by the occasional development of hermaphroditic cones. We want to compare the expression patterns of orthologues and close relatives of flower developmental control genes in mutant and wild-type plants of one of the populations segregating for Acrocona in order to get deeper insights into the molecular genetic basis of reproductive development in a gymnosperm. In addition, a selected subset of these genes will be located on a spruce chromosomal linkage map generated with the other Acrocona population for phenotypic co-segregation studies aiming at gene cloning by candidate gene approaches, and using the ACROCONA gene here as a first test case. Our project is among the very first studying the role of developmental control genes in gymnosperm reproduction by means of molecular genetics.