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

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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.