• Login
    View Item 
    •   Athenaeum Home
    • BioMed Central Open Access Articles
    • Open Access Articles by UGA Faculty
    • View Item
    •   Athenaeum Home
    • BioMed Central Open Access Articles
    • Open Access Articles by UGA Faculty
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Floral homeotic C function genes repress specific B function genes in the carpel whorl of the basal eudicot California poppy (Eschscholzia californica)

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    2041-9139-1-13.xml (95.91Kb)
    2041-9139-1-13.pdf (2.765Mb)
    2041-9139-1-13-S2.PDF (12.02Kb)
    2041-9139-1-13-S1.PDF (8.811Kb)
    2041-9139-1-13-S3.PDF (90.54Kb)
    Date
    2010-12-01
    Author
    Yellina, Aravinda L
    Orashakova, Svetlana
    Lange, Sabrina
    Erdmann, Robert
    Leebens-Mack, Jim
    Becker, Annette
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Abstract Background The floral homeotic C function gene AGAMOUS (AG) confers stamen and carpel identity and is involved in the regulation of floral meristem termination in Arabidopsis. Arabidopsis ag mutants show complete homeotic conversions of stamens into petals and carpels into sepals as well as indeterminacy of the floral meristem. Gene function analysis in model core eudicots and the monocots rice and maize suggest a conserved function for AG homologs in angiosperms. At the same time gene phylogenies reveal a complex history of gene duplications and repeated subfunctionalization of paralogs. Results EScaAG1 and EScaAG2, duplicate AG homologs in the basal eudicot Eschscholzia californica show a high degree of similarity in sequence and expression, although EScaAG2 expression is lower than EScaAG1 expression. Functional studies employing virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) demonstrate that knock down of EScaAG1 and 2 function leads to homeotic conversion of stamens into petaloid structures and defects in floral meristem termination. However, carpels are transformed into petaloid organs rather than sepaloid structures. We also show that a reduction of EScaAG1 and EScaAG2 expression leads to significantly increased expression of a subset of floral homeotic B genes. Conclusions This work presents expression and functional analysis of the two basal eudicot AG homologs. The reduction of EScaAG1 and 2 functions results in the change of stamen to petal identity and a transformation of the central whorl organ identity from carpel into petal identity. Petal identity requires the presence of the floral homeotic B function and our results show that the expression of a subset of B function genes extends into the central whorl when the C function is reduced. We propose a model for the evolution of B function regulation by C function suggesting that the mode of B function gene regulation found in Eschscholzia is ancestral and the C-independent regulation as found in Arabidopsis is evolutionarily derived.
    URI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2041-9139-1-13
    http://hdl.handle.net/10724/19657
    Collections
    • Open Access Articles by UGA Faculty

    About Athenaeum | Contact Us | Send Feedback
     

     

    Browse

    All of AthenaeumCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    About Athenaeum | Contact Us | Send Feedback