Journal Article Ppublish 3 citations
PubMed: 39964724 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2421990122
Antagonizing regulatory elements of a conserved flowering gene mediate developmental robustness.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 122(8):e2421990122
Authors: Amy Lanctot, Anat Hendelman, Peter Udilovich, Gina M Robitaille, Zachary B Lippman
Affiliations
- HHMI, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724.
- Plant Biology, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724.
Abstract
Developmental transitions require precise temporal and spatial control of gene expression. In plants, such regulation is critical for flower formation, which involves the progressive maturation of stem cell populations within shoot meristems to floral meristems, followed by rapid sequential differentiation into floral organs. Across plant taxa, these transitions are orchestrated by the F-box transcriptional cofactor gene (). The conserved and pleiotropic functions of offer a useful framework for investigating how evolutionary processes have shaped the intricate regulation of key developmental genes. By pinpointing a conserved promoter sequence in an accessible chromatin region of the tomato ortholog of , we engineered in vivo a series of regulatory alleles that caused both loss- and gain-of-function floral defects. These mutant phenotypes were linked to disruptions in predicted transcription factor binding sites for known transcriptional activators and repressors. Allelic combinations revealed dosage-dependent interactions between opposing alleles, influencing the penetrance and expressivity of gain-of-function phenotypes. These phenotypic differences support that robustness in tomato flower development requires precise temporal control of expression dosage. Bridging our analysis to , we found that although homologous sequences to the tomato regulatory region are dispersed within the promoter, they maintain similar control over floral development. However, phenotypes from disrupting these sequences differ due to the differing expression patterns of . Our study underscores the complex regulatory control of dynamic developmental genes and demonstrates that critical short stretches of regulatory sequences that recruit both activating and repressing machinery are conserved to maintain developmental robustness.
MeSH
Genes, Promoter Regions, Genetic, Genes, Developmental, Microscopy, Electron, Scanning Transmission, Phenotype, Alleles