Flowering-time pathways pleiotropically regulate seed dormancy and germination

AUGE, GABRIELA A.; DONOHUE, KATHLEEN

Kyoto

Simposio; 6th Plant Dormancy Symposium; 2018

Plants integrateenvironmental signals to adjust life cycles to seasons. Flowering andgermination are arguably the most important developmental transitionsas they determine the conditions plants will experience duringreproduction and early growth, respectively. Independent regulationof both transitions by environmental cues could allow plants tobetter match life stages to the best environmental conditions thatensure survival. However, pleiotropy across signaling pathways mayallow coordinated responses of traits that are phenotypically linked,such as flowering and germination, throughout the life cycle. Ourwork shows there is pleiotropy across flowering and germinationsignaling pathways in Arabidopsisthaliana.Vernalization-associated genes FLC, FRI,VIP3,VIN3and VRN2,and the autonomous-flowering pathway genes FLK,FPA, FCA, FVEand FY,regulate seed germination. Genes in both signaling pathways showenvironment- and after-ripening-dependent regulation of dormancy andgermination. Although there is a high level of functionalconservation in the pathways, some differences observed in thegenetic interactions suggest there is divergence in responses forboth developmental transitions. More specifically, the autonomouspathway shows a high degree of functional conservation acrossdevelopment, while the vernalization pathway shows more divergence.This divergence in genetic pathways may be key to help alleviateconstraints imposed by pleiotropy that can affect adaptive responsesto seasonal changes in genetically-linked developmental transitions.p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(38, 38, 38); line-height: 115%; text-align: left; }p.western { font-family: "Franklin Gothic Book", serif; font-size: 10pt; }p.cjk { font-family: "ＭＳ Ｐゴシック"; font-size: 10pt; }p.ctl { font-size: 10pt; }a:link { color: rgb(102, 0, 0); }a.sdfootnotesym-western { color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 10pt; }a.sdfootnotesym-cjk { color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 10pt; }a.sdfootnotesym-ctl { color: rgb(51, 51, 51); }