Temperature, light and nitrate sensing coordinate Arabidopsis seed dormancy cycling, resulting in winter and summer annual phenotypes.

ABSTRACT: Seeds use environmental cues to sense the seasons and their surroundings to initiate the life cycle of the plant. The dormancy cycling underlying this process is extensively described, but the molecular mechanism is largely unknown. To address this we selected a range of representative genes from published array experiments in the laboratory, and investigated their expression patterns in seeds of Arabidopsis ecotypes with contrasting life cycles over an annual dormancy cycle in the field. We show how mechanisms identified in the laboratory are coordinated in response to the soil environment to determine the dormancy cycles that result in winter and summer annual phenotypes. Our results are consistent with a seed-specific response to seasonal temperature patterns (temporal sensing) involvin

SUBMITTER: Footitt S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3764396 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature