Lost Memories of Winter: Breaking the FLC Silence

Abstract

Vernalization, the acquisition of competence to flower after extended cold treatment, has puzzled researchers throughout the last century. Great progress in understanding the molecular mechanisms of vernalization in Arabidopsis has been made in the course of the last 20 years, placing the flowering repressor-encoding gene FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) in the limelight (Bouche et al., 2017). In vernalization-dependent accessions, FRIGIDA (FRI) ensures strong expression of FLC that delays flowering, and extended exposure to low temperatures such as during winter leads to stable repression of FLC, which in turn clears the way for induction of flowering.