Thursday, August 10, 2006

 

Genetic snooze button governs timing of spring flowers

In the long, dark days of winter, gardeners are known to count the days until spring. Now, scientists have learned, some plants do exactly the same thing.

Addressing scientists today (Aug. 9) at a meeting of the American Society of Plant Biologists, University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Richard Amasino described studies that have begun to peel back some of the mystery of how plants pace the seasons to bloom at the optimal time of year.

...In a series of studies of Arabidopsis, a small mustard plant commonly used to study plant genetics, Amasino and his colleagues have found there are certain critical genes that repress flowering...

Recent publications by Richard Amasino:

Epigenetic maintenance of the vernalized state in Arabidopsis requires like heterochromatin protein 1

The transcription factor FLC confers a flowering response to vernalization by repressing meristem competence and systemic signaling in Arabidopsis.

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