Evolutionary developmental transcriptomics reveals a gene network module regulating interspecific diversity in plant leaf shape.

ABSTRACT: Despite a long-standing interest in the genetic basis of morphological diversity, the molecular mechanisms that give rise to developmental variation are incompletely understood. Here, we use comparative transcriptomics coupled with the construction of gene coexpression networks to predict a gene regulatory network (GRN) for leaf development in tomato and two related wild species with strikingly different leaf morphologies. The core network in the leaf developmental GRN contains regulators of leaf morphology that function in global cell proliferation with peripheral gene network modules (GNMs). The BLADE-ON-PETIOLE (BOP) transcription factor in one GNM controls the core network by altering effective concentration of the KNOTTED-like HOMEOBOX gene product. Comparative network analysis and ex

SUBMITTER: Ichihashi Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4078850 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature