LEAFY controls floral meristem identity in Arabidopsis

Creators: Weigel, Detlef; Alvarez, John; Smyth, David R.; Yanofsky, Martin F.; Meyerowitz, Elliot M.

Abstract

The first step in flower development is the generation of a floral meristem by the inflorescence meristem. We have analyzed how this process is affected by mutant alleles of the Arabidopsis gene LEAFY. We show that LEAFY interacts with another floral control gene, APETALA1, to promote the transition from inflorescence to floral meristem. We have cloned the LEAFY gene, and, consistent with the mutant phenotype, we find that LEAFY RNA is expressed strongly in young flower primordia. LEAFY expression precedes expression of the homeotic genes AGAMOUS and APETALA3, which specify organ identity within the flower. Furthermore, we demonstrate that LEAFY is the Arabidopsis homolog of the FLORICAULA gene, which controls floral meristem identity in the distantly related species Antirrhinum majus.

Additional Information

© 1992 Cell Press. Under a Creative Commons license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Received 28 February 1992, Revised 2 April 1992. We thank all members of the Meyerowitz laboratory, and H. Baribault, J. Bowman, E. Lewis, H. Lipshitz, S. Parkhurst, and P. Sternberg for helpful suggestions on the manuscript, and H. Ma for help with the initial RFLP mapping. Special thanks go to C. Chang for help with isolating RNA. We are particularly grateful to E. Coen for making the FLO probe available prior to publication. We are indebted to L. Brockman and T. Jack, R. Carpenter and E. Coen, K. Feldmann. E. Grill, and C. Somerville, 8. Hauge and H. Goodman, E. Huala and I. Sussex, P. Perez and D. Gerentes (BIOCEM), S. Poethig. E. Schultz, and G. Haughn, and E. Ward for kindly providing material and for communicating unpublished data. P. Koen gave Invaluable advice on SEM and photographic work. D. W. was supported by an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship and by a Senior Fellowship from the American Cancer Society, California Division. This work was supported by US Department of Energy Division of Energy Biosciences grant DE-FG03-88ER13873 to E.M.M. and Australian Research Council grant A08831996 to D.R.S. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

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