Open AccessPaf1c defects challenge the robustness of flower meristem termination inArabidopsis thaliana
Author(s) -
Kateryna Fal,
Matthieu Cortes,
Mengying Liu,
Sam Collaudin,
Pradeep Das,
Olivier Hamant,
Christophe Tréhin
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.15
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1477-9129
pISSN - 0950-1991
DOI - 10.1242/dev.173377
Subject(s) - biology , agamous , arabidopsis , meristem , gynoecium , inflorescence , robustness (evolution) , mutant , genetics , eudicots , phenotype , ovule , gene , microbiology and biotechnology , botany , stamen , embryo , pollen , taxonomy (biology)
Although accumulating evidence suggests that gene regulation is highly stochastic, genetic screens have successfully uncovered master developmental regulators, questioning the relationship between transcriptional noise and intrinsic robustness of development. To identify developmental modules that are more or less resilient to large-scale genetic perturbations, we used the Arabidopsis polymerase II-associated factor 1 complex (Paf1c) mutant vip3 , which is impaired in several RNA polymerase II-dependent transcriptional processes. We found that the control of flower termination was not as robust as classically pictured. In angiosperms, the floral female organs, called carpels, display determinate growth: their development requires the arrest of stem cell maintenance. In vip3 mutant flowers, carpels displayed a highly variable morphology, with different degrees of indeterminacy defects up to wild-type size inflorescence emerging from carpels. This phenotype was associated with variable expression of two key regulators of flower termination and stem cell maintenance in flowers, WUSCHEL and AGAMOUS The phenotype was also dependent on growth conditions. Together, these results highlight the surprisingly plastic nature of stem cell maintenance in plants and its dependence on Paf1c.