Project description:Flowering in plants is a very dynamic and synchronized process where various cues including age, day-length, temperature and endogenous hormones fine-tune the timing of flowering for reproductive success. Arabidopsis thaliana is a facultative long day plant where long-day (LD) photoperiod promotes flowering. Arabidopsis still flowers under short-day (SD) conditions, albeit much later than LD conditions. Although, factors regulating the photoperiodic LD pathway have been extensively investigated, the SD pathway is much less understood. Here we identified a critical transcription factor called bHLH93 (basic Helix-Loop-Helix 93) that is essential to induce flowering specifically under SD conditions in Arabidopsis. bhlh93 mutants do not flower from primary meristem under SD conditions, but flowers similar to wild type under LD conditions. The late flowering phenotype is rescued by exogenous application of GA, suggesting that bHLH93 acts upstream of GA pathway to promote flowering. Double mutant studies showed that bhlh93 is epistatic to phyB and soc1 genes under SD conditions. bHLH93 is expressed at the meristematic regions and its expression peaks at 8 hours after dawn under SD conditions. As expected, the bHLH93 is localized in the nucleus. Taken together, these data suggest that bHLH93 is a key transcription factor necessary for Arabidopsis thaliana to evolve as a facultative plant.
Project description:Flowering in plants is a very dynamic and synchronized process where various cues including age, day-length, temperature and endogenous hormones fine-tune the timing of flowering for reproductive success. Arabidopsis thaliana is a facultative long day plant where long-day (LD) photoperiod promotes flowering. Arabidopsis still flowers under short-day (SD) conditions, albeit much later than LD conditions. Although, factors regulating the photoperiodic LD pathway have been extensively investigated, the SD pathway is much less understood. Here we identified a critical transcription factor called bHLH93 (basic Helix-Loop-Helix 93) that is essential to induce flowering specifically under SD conditions in Arabidopsis. bhlh93 mutants do not flower from primary meristem under SD conditions, but flowers similar to wild type under LD conditions. The late flowering phenotype is rescued by exogenous application of GA, suggesting that bHLH93 acts upstream of GA pathway to promote flowering. Double mutant studies showed that bhlh93 is epistatic to phyB and soc1 genes under SD conditions. bHLH93 is expressed at the meristematic regions and its expression peaks at 8 hours after dawn under SD conditions. As expected, the bHLH93 is localized in the nucleus. Taken together, these data suggest that bHLH93 is a key transcription factor necessary for Arabidopsis thaliana to evolve as a facultative plant. Stratified Col-0 and bhlh93-1 mutants seeds in cold for 4 days. Transferred to Short Day (8h light and 16h dark) chamber and harvested samples after 10days. Tissue was harvested 0 and 4 hour after light was turned on.
Project description:The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of autotetraploidy on gene expression in Arabidopsis thaliana by comparing diploid versus tetraploid transcriptomes. In particular, this included the comparison of the transcriptome of different tetraploid A. thaliana ecotypes (Col-0 vs. Ler-0). The study was extended to address further aspects. One was the comparison of the transcriptomes in subsequent generations. This intended to obtain information on the genome wide stability of autotetraploid gene expression. Another line of work compared the transcriptomes of different diploid vs. tetraploid tissues. This aimed to investigate whether particular gene groups are specifically affected during the development of A. thaliana autotetraploids. Samples 1-8: Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0 tetraploid transcriptome. Transcriptional profiling and comparison of diploid vs. tetraploid Col-0 seedlings. The experiment was carried out with pedigree of independently generated and assessed tetraploid Col-0 lines. Samples 9-12: Arabidopsis thaliana Ler-0 tetraploid transcriptome. Transcriptional profiling and comparison of diploid vs. tetraploid Ler-0 seedlings. The experiment was carried out with pedigree of independently generated and assessed tetraploid Ler-0 lines. Samples 13-24: Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0 tetraploid transcriptome. Transcriptional profiling and comparison of diploid vs. tetraploid Col-0 leaves (6th - 8th). The experiment was carried out with pedigree of independently generated and assessed tetraploid Col-0 lines. Samples 25-32: Arabidopsis thaliana Ler-0 tetraploid transcriptome. Transcriptional profiling and comparison of diploid vs. tetraploid Ler-0 leaves (6th - 8th). The experiment was carried out with pedigree of independently generated and assessed tetraploid Ler-0 lines. Samples 33-36: Arabidopsis thaliana Ler-0 tetraploid transcriptome. Transcriptional profiling and comparison of tetraploid vs. tetraploid Ler-0 seedlings from the second (F2) and third (F3) generation after induction, respectively. The experiment was carried out with pedigree of independently generated and assessed tetraploid Ler-0 lines. Samples 37-40: Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0 tetraploid transcriptome. Transcriptional profiling and comparison of tetraploid vs. tetraploid Col-0 seedlings from the second (F2) and third (F3) generation after induction, respectively. The experiment was carried out with pedigree of independently generated and assessed tetraploid Col-0 lines. Samples 41-44: Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0/Ler-0 diploid transcriptome. Transcriptional profiling and comparison of diploid Col-0 vs. diploid Ler-0 seedlings. The experiment was carried out with pedigree of esrablished lines. Samples 45-48: Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0/Ler-0 tetraploid transcriptome. Transcriptional profiling and comparison of tetraploid Col-0 vs tetraploid Ler-0 seedlings. The experiment was carried out with pedigree of independently generated and assessed tetraploid Col-0 and Ler-0 lines.
Project description:The aim of this experiment is to test the ability of the ortholog of Arabidopsis LFY gene from Leanworthia crassa (Lcr) to complement an Arabidopsis LFY mutant. Plants used are homozygous lfy6 mutants (EMS alleles) in Ler background which are transformed or not (for the lfy6 mutant) by genomic clones for Arabidopsis LFY (AthLFY) or Leanworthia crassa LFY (LcrLFY). Flowering was synchronized by growing plants in SD then shifting them to LD. 2 time points samples (wild type Ler) were taken at the end of the SD period as a reference for genes induced by shifting to LD, irrespective of the status at the LFY locus.
Project description:We conducted whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) of Arabidopsis thaliana mutation accumulation (MA) lines under different temperature treatments over sucessive generations, and then we identified the global methylation in each MA line. Our result showed taht DNA methylation was observed more frequently at DNA mutation sites, indicating its contribution to the mutation process at elevated temperatures.