LEAFY maintains apical stem cell activity during shoot development in the fern Ceratopteris richardii.

ABSTRACT: During land plant evolution, determinate spore-bearing axes (retained in extant bryophytes such as mosses) were progressively transformed into indeterminate branching shoots with specialized reproductive axes that form flowers. The LEAFY transcription factor, which is required for the first zygotic cell division in mosses and primarily for floral meristem identity in flowering plants, may have facilitated developmental innovations during these transitions. Mapping the LEAFY evolutionary trajectory has been challenging, however, because there is no functional overlap between mosses and flowering plants, and no functional data from intervening lineages. Here, we report a transgenic analysis in the fern Ceratopteris richardii that reveals a role for LEAFY in maintaining cell divisions

SUBMITTER: Plackett AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6200394 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature