Axillary meristem development in Arabidopsis

发育生物学的目的之一是了解植物形态多样化的机制。我们使用了一组五种晚花拟南芥生态型，它们形成了自然选择的变异形态，在这些形态中，营养结构甚至在植物的生殖发育期间也继续启动。这种形态变化影响了植物的生活史特征，使植物的寿命从几个月延长到几年。我们之前建立了指定这种形态的基因之间的关键遗传交互作用。下一步，我们的目标是通过利用基因芯片和平铺阵列来识别下游靶标和关键效应器，以规范这种形态。识别和表征自然选择所青睐的特定等位基因，将使我们能够深入了解进化机制，并将其用于环境友好型植物生物技术。我们以前的工作发现了新的花抑制因子，它可以延缓植物生殖发育的开始。我们的数据表明，对其余生态型的分析可能会识别出更多的花抑制因子。除了对植物生殖发育调控的基本理解做出贡献外，这项研究项目还为利用自然发生的基因调控相互作用的作物环境重点生物技术提供了工具。我们发现的基因调控相互作用对于最大生物量的生产和转基因的遏制至关重要，这是进一步发展植物作为生物反应器所必需的。

One of the aims of developmental biology is to understand the mechanisms underlying the diversification of plant forms. We are using a set of five late-flowering Arabidopsis ecotypes that form naturally selected variant morphology in which vegetative structures continue to initiate even during the plant's reproductive development. This morphological change impacts the life history traits and expends the plant life span from months to years. We previously established key genetic interactions between genes that specify this morphology. In the next step, our aim is to identify downstream targets and key effectors involved in specification of such morphology by taking advantage of GeneChip and tiling arrays. Identification and characterization of specific alleles that have been favored by natural selection would allow us to gain an insight into mechanisms of evolution and to exploit them for environmentally friendly plant biotechnology. Our previous work identified novel floral repressor that acts to delay the onset of reproductive development in plants. Our data suggest that the analysis of remainder of ecotypes may identify additional floral repressors. In addition to contribution to the fundamental understanding of regulation of plant reproductive development, this research project provides tools for the environmentally focused biotechnology of crops using naturally occurring gene regulatory interactions. Our discovered genetic regulatory interactions are crucial for production of maximum biomass, and containment of a transgene, which is required for further development of plants as bioreactors.