Yuehui He

Floral development at the Arabidopsis shoot apical meristem occurs in response to environmental cues that are perceived in different tissues. Photoperiod is detected in the vascular tissue of the leaf (phloem) and promotes production of a systemic signal that induces flowering at the meristem. Vernalization, the response to winter temperatures, overcomes a block on photoperiodic floral induction. In Arabidopsis, this block is caused by inhibitors of flowering that comprise several related MADS-box transcription factors, the most prominent of which is FLC. We show that FLC delays flowering by repressing production in the leaf of at least two systemic signals, one of which is controlled by the RAF kinase inhibitor-like protein FT. Reducing expression of these signals indirectly represses expression of genes involved in floral induction at the meristem. In addition, FLC expression in the meristem impairs response to the FT signal by directly repressing expression of the SOC1 MADS-box transcription factor and preventing up-regulation of the bZIP transcription factor FD. Repression of genes acting at multiple levels in this hierarchy is required for the extreme delay in flowering caused by FLC. An FLC:HA fusion protein binds directly in vivo to the promoter regions of FD and SOC1 and to the first intron of FT. Thus vernalization relieves transcriptional repression of key regulatory genes in both the leaf and meristem, allowing production of systemic signals in the leaves and conferring competence on the meristem to respond to these signals.

In this work, the role of jasmonic acid (JA) in leaf senescence is examined. Exogenous application of JA caused premature senescence in attached and detached leaves in wild-type Arabidopsis but failed to induce precocious senescence of JA-insensitive mutant coi1 plants, suggesting that the JA-signaling pathway is required for JA to promote leaf senescence. JA levels in senescing leaves are 4-fold higher than in non-senescing ones. Concurrent with the increase in JA level in senescing leaves, genes encoding the enzymes that catalyze most of the reactions of the JA biosynthetic pathway are differentially activated during leaf senescence in Arabidopsis, except for allene oxide synthase, which is constitutively and highly expressed throughout leaf development. Arabidopsis lipoxygenase 1 (cytoplasmic) expression is greatly increased but lipoxygenase 2 (plastidial) expression is sharply reduced during leaf senescence. Similarly, AOC1 (allene oxide cyclase 1), AOC2, and AOC3 are all up-regulated, whereas AOC4 is down-regulated with the progression of leaf senescence. The transcript levels of 12-oxo-PDA reductase 1 and 12-oxo-PDA reductase 3 also increase in senescing leaves, as does PED1 (encoding a 3-keto-acyl-thiolase for beta-oxidation). This represents the first report, to our knowledge, of an increase in JA levels and expression of oxylipin genes during leaf senescence, and indicates that JA may play a role in the senescence program.

The Arabidopsis autonomous floral-promotion pathway promotes flowering independently of the photoperiod and vernalization pathways by repressing FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC), a MADS-box transcription factor that blocks the transition from vegetative to reproductive development. Here, we report that FLOWERING LOCUS D (FLD), one of six genes in the autonomous pathway, encodes a plant homolog of a protein found in histone deacetylase complexes in mammals. Lesions in FLD result in hyperacetylation of histones in FLC chromatin, up-regulation of FLC expression, and extremely delayed flowering. Thus, the autonomous pathway regulates flowering in part by histone deacetylation. However, not all autonomous-pathway mutants exhibit FLC hyperacetylation, indicating that multiple means exist by which this pathway represses FLC expression.

Plant species have evolved a wide variety of flowering habits, each adapted to maximize reproductive success in their local environment. Even within a species, accessions from different environments can exhibit markedly different flowering behavior. In Arabidopsis, some accessions are rapid-cycling summer annuals, whereas others accessions are late flowering and vernalization responsive and thus behave as winter annuals. Two genes, FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) and FRIGIDA (FRI), interact synergistically to confer the winter-annual habit. Previous work has shown that many summer-annual accessions contain null mutations in the FRI gene; thus it appears that these summer-annual accessions have arisen from winter-annual ancestors by losing FRI function. In this work we demonstrate that naturally occurring allelic variation in FLC has provided another route to the evolution of summer-annual flowering behavior in Arabidopsis. We have identified two summer-annual accessions, Da (1)-12 and Shakhdara, that contain functional alleles of FRI, but are early flowering because of weak alleles of FLC. We have also determined that the weak allele of FLC found in Landsberg erecta is naturally occurring. Unlike accessions that have arisen because of loss-of-function mutations in FRI, the FLC alleles from Da (1)-12, Shakhdara, and Landsberg erecta are not nulls; however, they exhibit lower steady-state mRNA levels than strong alleles of FLC. Sequence analysis indicates that these weak alleles of FLC have arisen independently at least twice during the course of evolution.

The winter-annual habit (which typically involves a requirement for exposure to the cold of winter to flower in the spring) in Arabidopsis thaliana is mainly due to the repression of flowering by relatively high levels of FLC expression. Exposure to prolonged cold attenuates FLC expression through a process known as vernalization and thus permits flowering to occur in the spring. Here we show that the elevated FLC expression characteristic of nonvernalized winter annuals requires two genes, EARLY FLOWERING 7 (ELF7) and EARLY FLOWERING 8 (ELF8), that are homologs of components of the PAF1 complex of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Furthermore, ELF7 and ELF8 are also required for the expression of other genes in the FLC clade of flowering repressors such as MAF2 and FLM. FLC, FLM, and MAF2 are involved in multiple flowering pathways that account for the broad effects of elf7 and elf8 mutations on flowering behavior. ELF7 and ELF8 are required for the enhancement of histone 3 trimethylation at Lys 4 in FLC chromatin. This modification of FLC chromatin appears to be required to elevate FLC expression to levels that can delay flowering in plants that have not been vernalized. A model of the role of ELF7, ELF8, and other previously described genes in the modification of the chromatin of flowering repressors is presented.