Antagonizing <i>cis-</i>regulatory elements of a conserved flowering gene mediate developmental robustness.

ABSTRACT: Developmental transitions require precise temporal and spatial control of gene expression. In plants, such regulation is critical for flower formation, which involves the progressive maturation of stem cell populations within shoot meristems to floral meristems, followed by rapid sequential differentiation into floral organs. Across plant taxa, these transitions are orchestrated by the F-box transcriptional cofactor gene UNUSUAL FLORAL ORGANS (UFO). The conserved and pleiotropic functions of UFO offer a useful framework for investigating how evolutionary processes have shaped the intricate cis-regulation of key developmental genes. By pinpointing a conserved promoter sequence in an accessible chromatin region of the tomato ortholog of UFO, we engineered i

SUBMITTER: Lanctot A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11874208 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature