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Published January 1991 | Published
Journal Article Open

A genetic and molecular model for flower development in Arabidopsis thaliana

Abstract

Cells in developing organisms do not only differentiate, they differentiate in defined patterns. A striking example is the differentiation of flowers, which in most plant families consist of four types of organs: sepals, petals, stamens and carpels, each composed of characteristic cell types. In the families of flowering plants in which these organs occur, they are patterned with the sepals in the outermost whorl or whorls of the flower, with the petals next closest to the center, the stamens even closer to the center, and the carpels central. In each species of flowering plant the disposition and number (or range of numbers) of these organs is also specified, and the floral 'formula' is repeated in each of the flowers on each individual plant of the species. We do not know how cells in developing plants determine their position, and in response to this determination differentiate to the cell types appropriate for that position. While there have been a number of speculative proposals for the mechanism of organ specification in flowers (Goethe, 1790; Goebel, 1900; Heslop-Harrison, 1964; Green, 1988), recent genetic evidence is inconsistent with all of them, at least in the forms in which they were originally presented (Bowman et al. 1989; Meyerowitz et al. 1989). We describe here a preliminary model, based on experiments with Arabidopsis thaliana. The model is by and large consistent with existing evidence, and has predicted the results of a number of genetic and molecular experiments that have been recently performed.

Additional Information

© 1991 Company of Biologists Limited. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of the former student and postdoctoral fellows in our lab who worked on the flower project: Hong Ma (now at Cold Spring Harbor Labs), Robert E. Pruitt (now at the University of Minnesota), Usha Vijayraghavan (now at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) and Martin F. Yanofsky (now at the University of California, San Diego). Also David R. Smyth, of Monash University, Melbourne, who contributed to the project while here on sabbatical leave. Our work on flower development is funded by U.S. National Science Foundation grant DCB-8703439, and by funds from the Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust. J.L.B. and L.L.B. have been supported by NIH training grant 5T32-GM07616; G.N.D. and T.P.J. are supported by NIH postdoctoral fellowships, L.E.S. is a fellow of the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Fund, and D.W. is an EMBO long-term fellow.

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August 19, 2023
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