Abstract
Flowering is one of the most critical developmental transitions in plants’ life. The irreversible change from the vegetative to the reproductive stage is strictly controlled to ensure the progeny’s success. In Arabidopsis thaliana, seven flowering genetic pathways have been described under specific growth conditions. However, the evidence condensed here suggest that these pathways are tightly interconnected in a complex multilevel regulatory network. In this review, we pursue an integrative approach emphasizing the molecular interactions among the flowering regulatory network components. We also consider that the same regulatory network prevents or induces flowering phase change in response to internal cues modulated by environmental signals. In this sense, we describe how during the vegetative phase of development it is essential to prevent the expression of flowering promoting genes until they are required. Then, we mention flowering regulation under suboptimal growing temperatures, such as those in autumn and winter. We next expose the requirement of endogenous signals in flowering, and finally, the acceleration of this transition by long-day photoperiod and temperature rise signals allowing A. thaliana to bloom in spring and summer seasons. With this approach, we aim to provide an initial systemic view to help the reader integrate this complex developmental process.
Highlights
Flowering transition is a fundamental trait in plant development that marks the end of the vegetative phase and the beginning of the reproductive state
After positional cloning, sequencing, and epistatic analyses, several factors that participate in those processes were uncovered, and they were separated into genetic pathways: the LD photoperiod pathway [6,7,8]; the late-flowering mutants under SD, resulted in plants affected in biosynthesis or signaling of gibberellins (GA); it was named the GA pathway [9,10,11]; the vernalization pathway [12,13,14], and the fourth group constituted the autonomous pathway [15,16]
A considerable effort has been made during decades to understand how plants regulate flowering transition in response to different seasons and changing climate conditions
Summary
Flowering transition is a fundamental trait in plant development that marks the end of the vegetative phase and the beginning of the reproductive state. Many other genes have been discovered to function in flowering transition by reverse genetics and expression profiling [17] Following the former nomenclature, three additional pathways were proposed: the thermosensory pathway includes mutant plants that showed a different flowering time than wild type when grown in suboptimal temperatures [18,19,20,21]. LFY, together with APETALA 1 (AP1) and CAULIFLOWER (CAL), give the identity to the FM [32], while SOC1, AGAMOUS-LIKE 24 (AGL24), and SHORT VEGETATIVE PHASE (SVP) help to maintain this identity in the first two stages of development [33,34] This hierarchical scheme of flowering transition has changed over time as more genes have been uncovered. Information regarding the individual flowering genetic pathways can be consulted in different reviews [8,37,38,39]
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